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This script is a .vpp file loader for using 3d voxel models created with Voxel Paint in your three.js projects. This loader is used by projects such as My Empire and My Colony 2. The loader takes your vpp file and converts it into a mesh object that you can add to a threejs scene. In some instances if special features are used in your model, it may return a Group object instead of a single mesh. You can learn more about how to use threejs here: https://threejs.org/
You can download the javascript file below, and this thread will be kept up to date with the latest release of the loader.
Last Updated: 11/30/2023
Basic Usage Instructions:
In your HTML:
In your Javascript, .vpp models can be loaded from either a URL or from a Javascript Object. Here are examples for both:
The vpploader script will automatically take care of reusing geometries for you when appropriate, in the event that you are adding multiple instances of the same object to your project.
If you have any questions or suggestions for the loader, feel free to leave them in this thread! I will be adding features and improvements as I add them to the .vpp file format, so if you are using this script, make sure you check back to ensure that you have the latest version of the loader.
You can download the javascript file below, and this thread will be kept up to date with the latest release of the loader.
Last Updated: 11/30/2023
Basic Usage Instructions:
In your HTML:
<script src="vpploader.js"></script>
In your Javascript, .vpp models can be loaded from either a URL or from a Javascript Object. Here are examples for both:
let options = {
callback: onModelLoaded,
path: "mymodel.vpp"
};
vppLoader.getMesh(options);
function onModelLoaded(mesh) {
scene.add(mesh);
}
The options object requires at least the path or obj parameter and the callback parameter. The callback should be a function that accepts the completed three.js mesh as it's argument.Here are the currently supported parameters for the options object:
callback: function. the function that will receive the completed three.js mesh
path: string. the relative URL of the .vpp file you want to load.
obj: object. instead of setting the path, you can specify a javascript object containing the vpp data.
color: string. if color is specified, every voxel that is set as the color #ff00ff will be swapped with the specified color.
color2: string. if color2 is specified, every voxel that is set as the color #00ffff will be swapped with the specified color.
scale: number. the scale/size of the returned mesh.
opacity number. the opacity of the returned mesh (from 0 to 1)
makeLights: boolean. if set to true, will add a three.js PointLight object to the returned model for all lights in the .vpp object that have a glow radius set.
useBasic: boolean. if set to true, model will be created using the MeshBasicMaterial, meaning it will not react to scene lighting. Better on performance, but also can be used to make a model that glows in the dark.
callback: function. the function that will receive the completed three.js mesh
path: string. the relative URL of the .vpp file you want to load.
obj: object. instead of setting the path, you can specify a javascript object containing the vpp data.
color: string. if color is specified, every voxel that is set as the color #ff00ff will be swapped with the specified color.
color2: string. if color2 is specified, every voxel that is set as the color #00ffff will be swapped with the specified color.
scale: number. the scale/size of the returned mesh.
opacity number. the opacity of the returned mesh (from 0 to 1)
makeLights: boolean. if set to true, will add a three.js PointLight object to the returned model for all lights in the .vpp object that have a glow radius set.
useBasic: boolean. if set to true, model will be created using the MeshBasicMaterial, meaning it will not react to scene lighting. Better on performance, but also can be used to make a model that glows in the dark.
The vpploader script will automatically take care of reusing geometries for you when appropriate, in the event that you are adding multiple instances of the same object to your project.
If you have any questions or suggestions for the loader, feel free to leave them in this thread! I will be adding features and improvements as I add them to the .vpp file format, so if you are using this script, make sure you check back to ensure that you have the latest version of the loader.
This post is basically like my old post(link below) but some of the ideas below were outdated and had to be refined, so here we are.
https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=3932
Firstly, before I present any new ideas, I want to say that I am supportive of bast's focusing on game quality over content. I also don't expect any of these ideas to just be copied and pasted into the game as is, although it would be nice. The main reason for why I create these posts full of ideas is so that bast has a lot of ideas to think about and gain inspiration from when developing his own ideas for mc. I'm going to try my best to generalize my ideas without trying to name specific buildings and units to be added, as it's bast's job to think of the specifics. Now with that out of the way, let's begin.
The rigidity of MC's atmospherics:
My colony is one of my favorite games to play, so I mean no offense in saying this, but I have to say it. My colony is very rigid when it comes to how the planets respond to terraforming. For most planets, you get from 0 to 5 mil atmosphere and then the planet is fully terraformed, and stays that way even if you run out of atmosphere or accumulate 500 mil atmosphere. There's no consequence for failing to manage the atmosphere, and the terraformation process is very short, in fact, it's so short that you can terraform the planet relatively quickly just with industry alone. You should not be able to do that, and the journey of terraforming a planet should be much much longer than it is now, especially for regions. In real life, it takes hundreds of years, an unimaginable amount of money, and countless workers to terraform a planet. While I'm not saying it should take hundreds of years to terraform a planet in mc, I do think a significantly larger amount of effort, resources, and time should be required than what is now. Also, another way that mc is rigid is that it only takes into account atmosphere when there are other factors to consider, like heat, moisture/sea level, gravity, radiation exposure, Planetary core condition, ozone level, etc. This thread will discuss all of these factors as well. Now, with all of that out of the way, let's talk about some general atmospheric dynamics.
General Dynamics:
Step one: In order to get a good start on smoothing out the rigidity of mc's atmospherics, we need to start by raising the atmosphere requirements for each atmosphere stage.This elongates the journey of terraformation. For instance, stage -2(microbial stage) could be at 1.25 mil atmosphere, stage -1(plant stage) could be at 5 mil, and stage 0(earthlike) could be at 25, so we would be making the process 5 time longer. Now some would say "but that's boring, if it lasts longer, we'd just be doing the same thing for much longer," and I would agree with you. That's why I've come up with some ideas of different features to add to each stage to make each stage feel like a giant leap for your colony, but we will talk about those later.
Step two: We need to add upper limits to each stage that must be met in order to be in that stage. The upper limit for each stage is equal to the lower limit of the stag above it. This ensures that if you drain your atmosphere, you will also digress through the stages until you eventually end up with a barren planet, no matter what planet you start on. if you have any buildings that require a certain stage greater than -3, those should deactivate once their requirements are no longer met. This is what I was talking about regarding consequences for not managing your atmosphere, but since industry always aids in increasing atmosphere, and since the stages are much further apart, it would also be 5 times easier to maintain that it currently is, and currently it's very difficult to keep atmosphere between 5-15 mil in end-game, however, keeping atmosphere between 25-75 mil is a different story.
Step three: add the upper stages. These stages determine what happens when atmosphere get's too high. Stage 1 could start at 75 mil and would cause any buildings with stage 0 requirements to shut down. Stage 2 would be at 150 mil mil and would cause any buildings that require stage -1 requirements to shut down. Stage 3 is the highest atmospheric stage and could start at 500 mil and would shut down any buildings with stage -2 requirements. So think of the stages as a bullseye, with nested rings. the closer you get to the center, the more buildings you can build and the more earthlike a planet is, but the farther away you are to each side, the more barren a planet is. So all buildings will have 1 out of the following four requirements: -3 or 3(barren stages), -2 or 2(microbial stages), -1 or 1(plant/fish stages), and 0(animal stage/earthlike). Additionally, the upper stages could add haziness in increasing density to simulate a dense atmosphere. So you could tell the difference between a barren planet with no atmosphere and a barren planet with too much atmosphere.
Step four: add in special effects. Each stage should look different that all of the others. In a way, mc already does this by changing the ground texture, but I believe that more differences should be added. For instance, the dry lake-bed terrain that I've spoke of several times could come in handy here. in stages -3 and 3, these tiles will resemble dry lakebeds, but in any other stage, these tiles turn into water. it's the same for water that is already added to some planet types, if you were to drain waterworld of its atmosphere or overload it with atmosphere, the entire map should dry up and leave you free to walk about and build where the water used to be. In stages -2 and 2, plants cannot exist, so trees would disappear and most farms would become inoperable. upon entering stage -1 or 1, trees could be generated around the map and would be left to spread around the map. That's really all that I have for this step for now, but I have an even bigger idea coming up soon.
Heat:
This section discusses ways that we could implement a heat aspect to the terraformation process to make reaching an earthlike state more challenging. I'd like you to remember the bullseye example that i talked about earlier, but now instead of a 1D line, going from left to right(atmosphere), add a second line going up and down(heat). This system creates an imaginary grid that your planet's status is on. Not only can your planet be hot and high and low pressure, but it can be high heat with low pressure, or low heat with high pressure, or vice versa. This greatly increases the factor of choice when it comes to terraforming your planet. This illustration is just to show you how these two factors of terraforming can be tied together.
The combination of heat and atmosphere exponentially increase the possibilities for new planet types. There would be consequences for not maintaining heat as well, along with rewards for keeping heat and atmosphere at an optimal medium. New structures would be needed in order to manage heat levels, as well as buildings that take advantage of colder or warmer climates. In fact, heat could also be a biproduct that's released by all buildings that release atmosphere as a biproduct. This would simulate a more accurate global warming effect. As for special effects, I wouldn't go too far out, but maybe give the lighting a dark red hue that grows denser as heat increases, and a light-blue hue as heat decreases. Obviously these should have limits, or else the entire screen could turn opaque red if too much heat is gained. Maybe some black particles for ash can be seen falling on hot planets at a certain heat level, while snow, which already has its own particle effect, could fall on cold planets at a certain heat level.
If atmosphere is low, heat will slowly decrease, if atmosphere is high, heat will slowly increase.
Water:
This section talks about a sea level feature. This third element adds a 3rd dimension to the bullseye diagram, creating yet exponentially more options and outcomes. Bast can choose how to display or organize these three factors. It really doesn't matter how they are displayed, even if it's just in the form of three separate status bars, the bullseye illustration is just to show you how all three of these elements tie together
The basis for the effect that sea level has on a planet revolves around 3 additional terrain types, high ground which is mountainous territory, middle ground for hilly territory, the main mc ground that we build on now would be known as low ground, which is optimal sea level. And finally, when sea level depletes, a new lower level is revealed, called the dry lakebed level, and the water eventually disappears, leaving a ground of dried lake bed in it's place. However, if sea level grows too much, it'll become level with middle ground, then high ground, and then eventually the entire map/region will be covered in water. When water covers a level, everything on that level is utterly destroyed except for any buildings that are supposed to be in the water, and vice versa, if a water building is built on water, but then the sea level recedes, and the tile that it was built on becomes land, it will also be destroyed.
Obviously we would need buildings that can manage sea level and buildings that can take advantage of high or low sea level. If heat is low, water will become ice, if heat is high, sea level will slowly boil off and recede.
Gravity:
Gravity should be a less-important feature to mc, but I still think it would enhance the terraforming system. Each planet starts off with the same atmosphere, heat, and sea level depending on planet type, but regardless of planet type, gravity should be randomized upon planet generation, creating a different result for each new game. This simulates how planets can be of the same type but vary greatly in size and mass. Too much gravity reduces colonist tolerable commute distance and increases heat due to more volcanic activity, not enough gravity will lower colonist maximum health and slowly drain the atmosphere. Certain buildings cannot be built when exposed to certain gravity levels, and some end-game solutions to undesired gravity level should be available.
radiation, core condition, and ozone levels:
Radiation should be fixed in it's amount depending on the planet type. This could allow for more planet type varieties. Radiation isn't like all of the other factors; instead of there being a happy medium for radiation, no radiation is good, so in perfect conditions, a planet has no radiation. Radiation at any level will damage colonists over time. Now, there are two ways to solve the radiation proble, and both methods are naturally used on earth:
Raise ozone level: In real life, the ozone layer of our atmosphere protects us from some radiation, but not all types of radiation. Perhaps you could add buildings that consume atmosphere and other resources to produce ozone, and then the higher the ozone layer, the less radiation exposure you have.
Secondly, in real life, our molten iron core creates a magnetic field that gaurds from most kinds of radiation. You can accomplish this in mc simply by adding more buildings that benefit from the deep digging tech and consume heat and steel to increase core health. The high the core health, the lower the radiation level.
Whichever way is simplest to you. Just know that certain buildings shouldn't be available when radiation goes over certain points. higher radiation should leech away atmosphere and increase planetary heat.
biospheres:
This section will be more complicated than the former sections. Biospheres adds a very dynamic feature to terraforming, and this feature makes each stage of terraforming feel like it's an accomplishment. First off, let's do a quick description. Biospheres is all about living organisms and how they interact and support each other and the environment. This system would allow you to create and customize(to an extent) the appearance and abilities of the organisms and have them spread over the map. The system would have two main categories, land and sea, and would have four sub-categories under that for microbes, plants, herbivores, and carnivores. Each organism produces support for the next tier of organism based on the abilities you give it, and can also be given abilities to affect the environment in certain ways. Each creature has a maximum amount to the abilities that you can give it, and the more abilities you give to an organism, the more support it requires from organisms from the tier below. Some organisms will be hardier than others, and some will need more support than others. The support system goes like this:
Microbes don't need to rely on support and provide support for plants.
Plants need support from Microbes and provide support for herbivores.
Herbivores needs support from plants and provide support to carnivores. Carnivores need support from both herbivores and other carnivores., as their support adds to the same type as herbivores.
The way that we will apply this system to each stage will be by requiring different atmosphere, heat, and sea levels for each catagory of organism. Seeing unique looking trees and grass spreading across the map and seeing creatures roam about the land would be amazing, especially if it happened in stages.
In stage -3 and 3, the planet is barren, but in stage -2 and 2, you can start utilizing microbes to produce many different resources and terraform, and in stages -1 and 1 you can start using plants, which opens up many different possibilities for resource production, since you should be able to farm your own custom plants for different resources. Then in stage 0, you gain access to animals, which you should be able to farm your own unique animals for different resources.
each organism, whether on land or in the sea, needs to be maintained. You must have enough land slots in order to create a new land organism, and the same applies to sea organisms and slots. Slots are given by structures that maintain the organisms, and more advanced structures have more slots. This prevents a player from easily amassing creatures that can quickly produce a certain resource or terraform the planet quickly. Each organism also has a health percentage that determines how well it's species is doing. If the percentage reaches 0, the species goes extinct and it's slot is freed up for another organism, but the higher the health percentage, the more support a species produces, the more effective you can be at exploiting it for resources, and the more effect it has on the planet. The health percentage has no upper limit, but it depends on how much support it has and how suitable the environment is for it.
Hopefully I've described this system well, but i believe that this system can bring life to mc and make it a more dynamic game and should increase it's value as a game.
Conclusion:
To wrap this up, I think we all have witnessed how rigid mc's terraforming system is and I think that these ideas would expand the possibilities for more planet types and would make the game more of a journey to terraform than just a waiting game. I hope everyone else feels the same, but once again, I don't put these ideas out there just for people to agree with me or for every detail to be copied and pasted into the game, I do it to provide ideas for bast to think about when he runs out of them.
https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=3932
Firstly, before I present any new ideas, I want to say that I am supportive of bast's focusing on game quality over content. I also don't expect any of these ideas to just be copied and pasted into the game as is, although it would be nice. The main reason for why I create these posts full of ideas is so that bast has a lot of ideas to think about and gain inspiration from when developing his own ideas for mc. I'm going to try my best to generalize my ideas without trying to name specific buildings and units to be added, as it's bast's job to think of the specifics. Now with that out of the way, let's begin.
The rigidity of MC's atmospherics:
My colony is one of my favorite games to play, so I mean no offense in saying this, but I have to say it. My colony is very rigid when it comes to how the planets respond to terraforming. For most planets, you get from 0 to 5 mil atmosphere and then the planet is fully terraformed, and stays that way even if you run out of atmosphere or accumulate 500 mil atmosphere. There's no consequence for failing to manage the atmosphere, and the terraformation process is very short, in fact, it's so short that you can terraform the planet relatively quickly just with industry alone. You should not be able to do that, and the journey of terraforming a planet should be much much longer than it is now, especially for regions. In real life, it takes hundreds of years, an unimaginable amount of money, and countless workers to terraform a planet. While I'm not saying it should take hundreds of years to terraform a planet in mc, I do think a significantly larger amount of effort, resources, and time should be required than what is now. Also, another way that mc is rigid is that it only takes into account atmosphere when there are other factors to consider, like heat, moisture/sea level, gravity, radiation exposure, Planetary core condition, ozone level, etc. This thread will discuss all of these factors as well. Now, with all of that out of the way, let's talk about some general atmospheric dynamics.
General Dynamics:
Step one: In order to get a good start on smoothing out the rigidity of mc's atmospherics, we need to start by raising the atmosphere requirements for each atmosphere stage.This elongates the journey of terraformation. For instance, stage -2(microbial stage) could be at 1.25 mil atmosphere, stage -1(plant stage) could be at 5 mil, and stage 0(earthlike) could be at 25, so we would be making the process 5 time longer. Now some would say "but that's boring, if it lasts longer, we'd just be doing the same thing for much longer," and I would agree with you. That's why I've come up with some ideas of different features to add to each stage to make each stage feel like a giant leap for your colony, but we will talk about those later.
Step two: We need to add upper limits to each stage that must be met in order to be in that stage. The upper limit for each stage is equal to the lower limit of the stag above it. This ensures that if you drain your atmosphere, you will also digress through the stages until you eventually end up with a barren planet, no matter what planet you start on. if you have any buildings that require a certain stage greater than -3, those should deactivate once their requirements are no longer met. This is what I was talking about regarding consequences for not managing your atmosphere, but since industry always aids in increasing atmosphere, and since the stages are much further apart, it would also be 5 times easier to maintain that it currently is, and currently it's very difficult to keep atmosphere between 5-15 mil in end-game, however, keeping atmosphere between 25-75 mil is a different story.
Step three: add the upper stages. These stages determine what happens when atmosphere get's too high. Stage 1 could start at 75 mil and would cause any buildings with stage 0 requirements to shut down. Stage 2 would be at 150 mil mil and would cause any buildings that require stage -1 requirements to shut down. Stage 3 is the highest atmospheric stage and could start at 500 mil and would shut down any buildings with stage -2 requirements. So think of the stages as a bullseye, with nested rings. the closer you get to the center, the more buildings you can build and the more earthlike a planet is, but the farther away you are to each side, the more barren a planet is. So all buildings will have 1 out of the following four requirements: -3 or 3(barren stages), -2 or 2(microbial stages), -1 or 1(plant/fish stages), and 0(animal stage/earthlike). Additionally, the upper stages could add haziness in increasing density to simulate a dense atmosphere. So you could tell the difference between a barren planet with no atmosphere and a barren planet with too much atmosphere.
Step four: add in special effects. Each stage should look different that all of the others. In a way, mc already does this by changing the ground texture, but I believe that more differences should be added. For instance, the dry lake-bed terrain that I've spoke of several times could come in handy here. in stages -3 and 3, these tiles will resemble dry lakebeds, but in any other stage, these tiles turn into water. it's the same for water that is already added to some planet types, if you were to drain waterworld of its atmosphere or overload it with atmosphere, the entire map should dry up and leave you free to walk about and build where the water used to be. In stages -2 and 2, plants cannot exist, so trees would disappear and most farms would become inoperable. upon entering stage -1 or 1, trees could be generated around the map and would be left to spread around the map. That's really all that I have for this step for now, but I have an even bigger idea coming up soon.
Heat:
This section discusses ways that we could implement a heat aspect to the terraformation process to make reaching an earthlike state more challenging. I'd like you to remember the bullseye example that i talked about earlier, but now instead of a 1D line, going from left to right(atmosphere), add a second line going up and down(heat). This system creates an imaginary grid that your planet's status is on. Not only can your planet be hot and high and low pressure, but it can be high heat with low pressure, or low heat with high pressure, or vice versa. This greatly increases the factor of choice when it comes to terraforming your planet. This illustration is just to show you how these two factors of terraforming can be tied together.
The combination of heat and atmosphere exponentially increase the possibilities for new planet types. There would be consequences for not maintaining heat as well, along with rewards for keeping heat and atmosphere at an optimal medium. New structures would be needed in order to manage heat levels, as well as buildings that take advantage of colder or warmer climates. In fact, heat could also be a biproduct that's released by all buildings that release atmosphere as a biproduct. This would simulate a more accurate global warming effect. As for special effects, I wouldn't go too far out, but maybe give the lighting a dark red hue that grows denser as heat increases, and a light-blue hue as heat decreases. Obviously these should have limits, or else the entire screen could turn opaque red if too much heat is gained. Maybe some black particles for ash can be seen falling on hot planets at a certain heat level, while snow, which already has its own particle effect, could fall on cold planets at a certain heat level.
If atmosphere is low, heat will slowly decrease, if atmosphere is high, heat will slowly increase.
Water:
This section talks about a sea level feature. This third element adds a 3rd dimension to the bullseye diagram, creating yet exponentially more options and outcomes. Bast can choose how to display or organize these three factors. It really doesn't matter how they are displayed, even if it's just in the form of three separate status bars, the bullseye illustration is just to show you how all three of these elements tie together
The basis for the effect that sea level has on a planet revolves around 3 additional terrain types, high ground which is mountainous territory, middle ground for hilly territory, the main mc ground that we build on now would be known as low ground, which is optimal sea level. And finally, when sea level depletes, a new lower level is revealed, called the dry lakebed level, and the water eventually disappears, leaving a ground of dried lake bed in it's place. However, if sea level grows too much, it'll become level with middle ground, then high ground, and then eventually the entire map/region will be covered in water. When water covers a level, everything on that level is utterly destroyed except for any buildings that are supposed to be in the water, and vice versa, if a water building is built on water, but then the sea level recedes, and the tile that it was built on becomes land, it will also be destroyed.
Obviously we would need buildings that can manage sea level and buildings that can take advantage of high or low sea level. If heat is low, water will become ice, if heat is high, sea level will slowly boil off and recede.
Gravity:
Gravity should be a less-important feature to mc, but I still think it would enhance the terraforming system. Each planet starts off with the same atmosphere, heat, and sea level depending on planet type, but regardless of planet type, gravity should be randomized upon planet generation, creating a different result for each new game. This simulates how planets can be of the same type but vary greatly in size and mass. Too much gravity reduces colonist tolerable commute distance and increases heat due to more volcanic activity, not enough gravity will lower colonist maximum health and slowly drain the atmosphere. Certain buildings cannot be built when exposed to certain gravity levels, and some end-game solutions to undesired gravity level should be available.
radiation, core condition, and ozone levels:
Radiation should be fixed in it's amount depending on the planet type. This could allow for more planet type varieties. Radiation isn't like all of the other factors; instead of there being a happy medium for radiation, no radiation is good, so in perfect conditions, a planet has no radiation. Radiation at any level will damage colonists over time. Now, there are two ways to solve the radiation proble, and both methods are naturally used on earth:
Raise ozone level: In real life, the ozone layer of our atmosphere protects us from some radiation, but not all types of radiation. Perhaps you could add buildings that consume atmosphere and other resources to produce ozone, and then the higher the ozone layer, the less radiation exposure you have.
Secondly, in real life, our molten iron core creates a magnetic field that gaurds from most kinds of radiation. You can accomplish this in mc simply by adding more buildings that benefit from the deep digging tech and consume heat and steel to increase core health. The high the core health, the lower the radiation level.
Whichever way is simplest to you. Just know that certain buildings shouldn't be available when radiation goes over certain points. higher radiation should leech away atmosphere and increase planetary heat.
biospheres:
This section will be more complicated than the former sections. Biospheres adds a very dynamic feature to terraforming, and this feature makes each stage of terraforming feel like it's an accomplishment. First off, let's do a quick description. Biospheres is all about living organisms and how they interact and support each other and the environment. This system would allow you to create and customize(to an extent) the appearance and abilities of the organisms and have them spread over the map. The system would have two main categories, land and sea, and would have four sub-categories under that for microbes, plants, herbivores, and carnivores. Each organism produces support for the next tier of organism based on the abilities you give it, and can also be given abilities to affect the environment in certain ways. Each creature has a maximum amount to the abilities that you can give it, and the more abilities you give to an organism, the more support it requires from organisms from the tier below. Some organisms will be hardier than others, and some will need more support than others. The support system goes like this:
Microbes don't need to rely on support and provide support for plants.
Plants need support from Microbes and provide support for herbivores.
Herbivores needs support from plants and provide support to carnivores. Carnivores need support from both herbivores and other carnivores., as their support adds to the same type as herbivores.
The way that we will apply this system to each stage will be by requiring different atmosphere, heat, and sea levels for each catagory of organism. Seeing unique looking trees and grass spreading across the map and seeing creatures roam about the land would be amazing, especially if it happened in stages.
In stage -3 and 3, the planet is barren, but in stage -2 and 2, you can start utilizing microbes to produce many different resources and terraform, and in stages -1 and 1 you can start using plants, which opens up many different possibilities for resource production, since you should be able to farm your own custom plants for different resources. Then in stage 0, you gain access to animals, which you should be able to farm your own unique animals for different resources.
each organism, whether on land or in the sea, needs to be maintained. You must have enough land slots in order to create a new land organism, and the same applies to sea organisms and slots. Slots are given by structures that maintain the organisms, and more advanced structures have more slots. This prevents a player from easily amassing creatures that can quickly produce a certain resource or terraform the planet quickly. Each organism also has a health percentage that determines how well it's species is doing. If the percentage reaches 0, the species goes extinct and it's slot is freed up for another organism, but the higher the health percentage, the more support a species produces, the more effective you can be at exploiting it for resources, and the more effect it has on the planet. The health percentage has no upper limit, but it depends on how much support it has and how suitable the environment is for it.
Hopefully I've described this system well, but i believe that this system can bring life to mc and make it a more dynamic game and should increase it's value as a game.
Conclusion:
To wrap this up, I think we all have witnessed how rigid mc's terraforming system is and I think that these ideas would expand the possibilities for more planet types and would make the game more of a journey to terraform than just a waiting game. I hope everyone else feels the same, but once again, I don't put these ideas out there just for people to agree with me or for every detail to be copied and pasted into the game, I do it to provide ideas for bast to think about when he runs out of them.
I am now putting the final touches on My Colony v1.4.0, which should be going out to all platforms over the coming days. This is Crime/Nanite Update Part 2, and includes a few other changes, as well as a somewhat unfortunate change to how the game will be distributed on the Windows Store. Read on for more details!
Firstly, the Crime engine switch has been flipped on in this update, so if you do not have Security related structures in place, you may want to build those now. Crime isn't a huge deal, but it can spiral out of control if you let it, so please be sure to have the appropriate structures in place.
Moving along, the Nanite tech is now available to all civilizations, but since the costs to unlock the tech were fairly high, I had to introduce new structures for both Reptilians and Zolarg for generating Civics, Research, Money, and the three Alien resources.
Reptilians gain access to the new Office of Patents and Licenses and Center for Ancient Extraction, which offer major increases in resource output required to unlock the Nanite tech. Once unlocked, the Reptilians get three additional Nanite relates structures, the Nanite Fabrication Den, Micro Evaporator, and the Microgrower.
On the Insectoid side, the new Unholy Hall of the Ancients produces the large amount of resources necessary to unlock the Nanite tech. Once unlocked, you will also find the new Nanite Fabrication Lab and Nano Crystal Tubes structures.
Not to be left out, the two Human civs also gained the new Helium Nanomine, which produces very high amounts of raw material resources.
All in all, there are 9 new structures in this update, spread across the three species.
In addition, some balance related tweaks were made. The Advanced Materials Silo and the Unholy Tower of Stuff can now store Ancient Instructions. The Antaura output of the Shrine of Mystics has been increased. The Unholy Core Mine now produces all resources at a faster rate.
Additionally, I have made some improvements to the way stacked units harvest resources, which has been requested for some time. You will notice that it just works better now.
On to some other My Colony news. You may or may not have noticed, that My Colony was removed from the Play store three times since the last update. They first removed the game for giving credit to the in-game music creators and community graphics artists in the store description. Apparently giving due credit was considered adding spammy keywords. After I fixed that, they removed the game for having inappropriate advertising, despite the fact that the game uses their own AdMob advertising network. So I went into AdMob and limited a bunch of the allowed ad categories, and the ended up rejecting the update again. So I made some more tweaks and finally they let the game back in the Play Store. Regardless, I ended up wasting several days messing with this issue for (in my opinion) dubious reasons.
In addition to this, some of you may or may not have seen that starting in June, MSFT is removing support for in-app advertising as a way to monetize applications on the Windows Store. This pretty much kills off the business model for the game on Windows, although the change is not entirely surprising given the declining performance of in-app based ads.
Given the above, My Colony will soon be going paid-only on the Windows Store, similar to how it is on Steam. In truth, the "free app with ads" business model has been in decline for some time on all platforms, and the only way to really make it work now is to become spammy with popups and whatnot, and I'm not prepared to do that on any platform. So Windows will be the first platform to make the switch, and I will consider doing the others later. Users who already download the free version on Windows will not lose access to it though, so if you've already downloaded it it will not impact you. The free version will go away for new users in a few weeks and I switch over to the paid version. The paid version will also unlock Premium on all platforms, just like on Steam.
So anyway, that is all for today's update. Enjoy, and stay tuned for more! And stay safe from the virus!!
Firstly, the Crime engine switch has been flipped on in this update, so if you do not have Security related structures in place, you may want to build those now. Crime isn't a huge deal, but it can spiral out of control if you let it, so please be sure to have the appropriate structures in place.
Moving along, the Nanite tech is now available to all civilizations, but since the costs to unlock the tech were fairly high, I had to introduce new structures for both Reptilians and Zolarg for generating Civics, Research, Money, and the three Alien resources.
Reptilians gain access to the new Office of Patents and Licenses and Center for Ancient Extraction, which offer major increases in resource output required to unlock the Nanite tech. Once unlocked, the Reptilians get three additional Nanite relates structures, the Nanite Fabrication Den, Micro Evaporator, and the Microgrower.
On the Insectoid side, the new Unholy Hall of the Ancients produces the large amount of resources necessary to unlock the Nanite tech. Once unlocked, you will also find the new Nanite Fabrication Lab and Nano Crystal Tubes structures.
Not to be left out, the two Human civs also gained the new Helium Nanomine, which produces very high amounts of raw material resources.
All in all, there are 9 new structures in this update, spread across the three species.
In addition, some balance related tweaks were made. The Advanced Materials Silo and the Unholy Tower of Stuff can now store Ancient Instructions. The Antaura output of the Shrine of Mystics has been increased. The Unholy Core Mine now produces all resources at a faster rate.
Additionally, I have made some improvements to the way stacked units harvest resources, which has been requested for some time. You will notice that it just works better now.
On to some other My Colony news. You may or may not have noticed, that My Colony was removed from the Play store three times since the last update. They first removed the game for giving credit to the in-game music creators and community graphics artists in the store description. Apparently giving due credit was considered adding spammy keywords. After I fixed that, they removed the game for having inappropriate advertising, despite the fact that the game uses their own AdMob advertising network. So I went into AdMob and limited a bunch of the allowed ad categories, and the ended up rejecting the update again. So I made some more tweaks and finally they let the game back in the Play Store. Regardless, I ended up wasting several days messing with this issue for (in my opinion) dubious reasons.
In addition to this, some of you may or may not have seen that starting in June, MSFT is removing support for in-app advertising as a way to monetize applications on the Windows Store. This pretty much kills off the business model for the game on Windows, although the change is not entirely surprising given the declining performance of in-app based ads.
Given the above, My Colony will soon be going paid-only on the Windows Store, similar to how it is on Steam. In truth, the "free app with ads" business model has been in decline for some time on all platforms, and the only way to really make it work now is to become spammy with popups and whatnot, and I'm not prepared to do that on any platform. So Windows will be the first platform to make the switch, and I will consider doing the others later. Users who already download the free version on Windows will not lose access to it though, so if you've already downloaded it it will not impact you. The free version will go away for new users in a few weeks and I switch over to the paid version. The paid version will also unlock Premium on all platforms, just like on Steam.
So anyway, that is all for today's update. Enjoy, and stay tuned for more! And stay safe from the virus!!
Today I am releasing the v1.25.0 patch for the original My Colony, which should be hitting all platforms throughout the weekend. This update brings some critical bug fixes, changes to how the app is packaged, as well as a change to the Challenges system, so let's take a look!
The main change in this update is to the Challenges system, with the addition of the new Snap Challenges, Daily Challenges, and Three Day Challenges, all automatically generated by the My Colony server.
Challenges were well received by many players, but I quickly realized it was sort of a pain for me to keep up with the system, having to create new challenges, stories, and logos every day, so I sort of fell behind on it. Well, now there will always be challenges available, with the addition of the three new challenge types mentioned above, which are all generated by the server.
Every day, a new Daily and Three Day challenge will be added, worth one and two trophies respectively. In addition, there are now one hour Snap Challenges, which will be generated at random times by the server throughout the day, so you never know when a Snap Challenge will occur. These rapid challenges are worth one trophy, and should give more players a chance to compete in the system, since you have an opportunity to sneak in under the radar and complete a challenge before some of the big colonies even notice it's there.
With these three new challenge types, there will now always be plenty of challenges to compete in. Of course, bigger challenges will still be added from time to time worth a lot more trophies.
Moving on, I have fixed the issue with resource decay that was making new Alpha Draconian colonies impossible to create. The new rule with decay is that resources will never decay to below the amount you are given at the beginning of the game, even if you have no storage.
Next up, a change is coming to the Steam edition of My Colony. There was an issue before where people were abusing the fact that the Steam client added premium to their Ape Apps accounts and were using the Steam version of the game to give free premium upgrades to other players. Because of this, the Steam Premium key is now going to be removed from everyone's Ape Apps account. The next time you log in to Steam after the update, the game will ask if you want to connect your Steam and Ape Apps accounts, and there can now only be one steam account per Ape Apps account. If you log into the Steam client using a different account, the original Ape Apps account will lose it's Steam Premium. Also, the Steam version of the app will now no longer start up unless Steam is running and signed in to a valid Steam account.
It might sound like a mess, but for players who were being honest about it, you should not really notice any difference. I hated having to add some form of minor DRM to the game/accounts, but of course there are always people who need to abuse things, so this should fix the issue.
On the plus side, once you tie your Steam account to your Ape Apps account, your account will gain automatic login for all current and future Ape Apps titles released on Steam (when opened through Steam).
Finally, I am bringing back the packaged desktop Native Client versions of My Colony, which I have not released for quite a while now. Several players have said they wanted these packaged versions of the app to return, so they will be. I plan to have them uploaded to the Ape Market some time later today.
So anyway, that is all for this update. It should be live on the Progressive Web App version right now, and will be hitting all other platforms over the coming days. Enjoy!
#mycolony
The main change in this update is to the Challenges system, with the addition of the new Snap Challenges, Daily Challenges, and Three Day Challenges, all automatically generated by the My Colony server.
Challenges were well received by many players, but I quickly realized it was sort of a pain for me to keep up with the system, having to create new challenges, stories, and logos every day, so I sort of fell behind on it. Well, now there will always be challenges available, with the addition of the three new challenge types mentioned above, which are all generated by the server.
Every day, a new Daily and Three Day challenge will be added, worth one and two trophies respectively. In addition, there are now one hour Snap Challenges, which will be generated at random times by the server throughout the day, so you never know when a Snap Challenge will occur. These rapid challenges are worth one trophy, and should give more players a chance to compete in the system, since you have an opportunity to sneak in under the radar and complete a challenge before some of the big colonies even notice it's there.
With these three new challenge types, there will now always be plenty of challenges to compete in. Of course, bigger challenges will still be added from time to time worth a lot more trophies.
Moving on, I have fixed the issue with resource decay that was making new Alpha Draconian colonies impossible to create. The new rule with decay is that resources will never decay to below the amount you are given at the beginning of the game, even if you have no storage.
Next up, a change is coming to the Steam edition of My Colony. There was an issue before where people were abusing the fact that the Steam client added premium to their Ape Apps accounts and were using the Steam version of the game to give free premium upgrades to other players. Because of this, the Steam Premium key is now going to be removed from everyone's Ape Apps account. The next time you log in to Steam after the update, the game will ask if you want to connect your Steam and Ape Apps accounts, and there can now only be one steam account per Ape Apps account. If you log into the Steam client using a different account, the original Ape Apps account will lose it's Steam Premium. Also, the Steam version of the app will now no longer start up unless Steam is running and signed in to a valid Steam account.
It might sound like a mess, but for players who were being honest about it, you should not really notice any difference. I hated having to add some form of minor DRM to the game/accounts, but of course there are always people who need to abuse things, so this should fix the issue.
On the plus side, once you tie your Steam account to your Ape Apps account, your account will gain automatic login for all current and future Ape Apps titles released on Steam (when opened through Steam).
Finally, I am bringing back the packaged desktop Native Client versions of My Colony, which I have not released for quite a while now. Several players have said they wanted these packaged versions of the app to return, so they will be. I plan to have them uploaded to the Ape Market some time later today.
So anyway, that is all for this update. It should be live on the Progressive Web App version right now, and will be hitting all other platforms over the coming days. Enjoy!
#mycolony
I have just put the finishing touches on the v0.75.0 update to My Colony, and will begin pushing it out to all platforms tomorrow (Thursday) morning, possibly even tonight if I get time. This is a huge update in terms of "under the hood" changes, and so there is a lot to cover here. It also marks the beginning of a series of "online" focused updates which will be taking place between now and the end of the year.
Now that My Colony has arrived on Steam (which you can find here), I have decided to shift focus a bit more away from the mobile side of things, towards the Desktop and online side of things. My Colony has always played better on the Desktop, but since the majority of users were on mobile, a lot of the design of the game had to be made with that reality in mind. As some of you already know, a few months ago, Google Play blacklisted My Colony from their store search results, cratering the mobile downloads of the game by over 90%. As a result, the My Colony user base has transformed from over 90% mobile users, to now almost 50/50 with Desktop users, spread out between my website, the Ape Apps Launcher, Windows 10, Chrome OS, Facebook Games, and now Steam. And even though the crash ratings on Google Play are back down under 2% and the downloads have picked back up slightly, it is still nowhere near where it once was. On top of that, the experience did open my eyes as to how Google Play operates, and demonstrated the risk involved with being tied so heavily to one platform. On Desktop, things are spread fairly evenly between the distribution networks (too early to tell on Steam yet), so there is a little bit of safety that comes with that situation. Plus, as I said, the game is just 10 times better on Desktop anyway.
So, just to be clear, I am not abandoning Android and iOS, and those platforms will continue to receive all of the latest updates. I am just not going to be focused on mobile first, and some features may not work on mobile platforms, as you will soon see below.
But enough of the intro, you are here to see what is new in this version, and there is quite a bit. So let's take a look!
First I want to go through some of the bugs that were addressed in this release, as one of them has a pretty large impact on later-stage Human colonies. So during this update, I discovered a mistake in the code that was majorly"nerfing" building consumption and production when the building had a very low "tick" phase. The two prime examples where the Ancient Alien Condenser and the Atmosphere Scrubber, but it would also impact buildings with tons of employees, like the Investment Bank.
Essentially, if the production/consumption tick phase was lower than that of the overall simulation's building tick phase, a bunch of update cycles for that building would get skipped, causing it to produce or consume resources at a far slower rate than it was supposed to. As far as I can tell, this issue has been baked into the game for ages, and when adding new content, I have just set the stats in a way to compensate for it, not even realizing it was there. As soon as I fixed the glitch though, the impact on Atmosphere was immediately apparent.
Ancient Alien Condensers and the Atmosphere Scrubber immediately went into "beast mode", chewing through millions of atmosphere in a matter of minutes. This brought my Atmosphere down to zero, causing all of the condensers in the colony to shut down, since they were out of "fuel". This led to an immediate water shortage which was difficult to get on top of, since I could not generate new atmosphere fast enough to keep up with the consumption of the condensers. I eventually just had to import a ton of water from the Star Gate.
Anyway, to address this, I slightly nerfed the stats on the Condenser, and introduced a new upgraded Large Atmosphere Generator to assist in rebuilding Atmosphere. I kept the Scrubbers running in beast mode though, I figured at their new consumption level, one Atmosphere Scrubber can take care of a pretty good sized colony.
So be aware of this new change, and modify your colony accordingly. I already know the bug reports section will be full of "I updated and now all of my Water is gone" reports, so just be aware of what is happening. It is not exactly a bug, but the result of the fix of a bug.
The next fix is related to Creative Mode in Region games. Basically, it didn't work before, and now it should.
Speaking of Regions, there was a glitch where Resource decay would be greatly amplified on Region maps. This has been corrected. I have also implemented several changes which I hope address the issue people have on Regions where tech/resources are lost. I cannot reproduce this issue on my own, so I hope the fix works. I know you will make me aware if it doesn't though!
Next, a lot of changes were made to the server this update. I am getting ready to add in-game moderators to My Colony, which I had hoped to have ready by now, but the server needed so many changes to accommodate for it, that I just didn't get to it. Just know that it is coming soon though.
The first big change comes with authenticated API calls. Aside from the public API's, you basically need to be logged in to your Ape Apps account to do anything on the server now. This requirement seems like a no brainer, but you have to realize that the My Colony server predates the Ape Apps Account server, and there were originally no account requirements at all.
Due to this change, the tie between your Ape Apps Account, your online colony, and the website is now pretty solid. If you happen to get banned from Ape Apps for some unrelated reason, your colony is pretty much inaccessible too, and you will need to send me an email convincing me why you should be able to get back in.
All colony resources are now stored on the server as well. They have actually been stored on the server for some time, but the server would never override the resources saved to your game file. Now it will. The server now keeps a timestamp and checksum synchronized to your online game saves, so that it can detect if you have decided to go back and restore a backup game file. This is to help detect different forms of cheating that are out there, and while restoring a backup does not flag you as a cheater, it is logged and will be available for review by the soon-to-be-announced in-game moderators.
Next up, in-game private messaging has been moved from the my-colony.com servers to the main ape-apps.com servers. As a result, you can now view and reply to your in-game private messages from right here on ape-apps.com. They will also soon be available on my-colony.com. Currently, they don't render very well on the website, but I will be making it all look pretty shortly. In-game it doesn't look much different from before, but in theory the message size limit is gone, although the game still doesn't let you write more characters. The website does though. In the coming updates though, the entire in-game messaging interface will be rewritten to take advantage of the new features available by using ape-apps.com messaging.
The next big change in the game, which I have mentioned already in another thread and some may not be pleased with, is the complete rewrite of how colonial GDP is calculated. In short, it is now an actual GDP calculation, instead of just the sum of all of your resources. So now instead of measuring just how rich you are, which anybody can attain by simply getting a big gift from another colony or from the Galactic Emperor, it is now a measure of the current productive output of all of your buildings, tax collections, and resource collections. In this way, your GDP only grows if your industrial output is growing. If you are maxed out with full storage, then your GDP will be stagnant. I might adjust it next update to have GBT profits figured into the calculation as well, since it is technically a sale of goods. I haven't decided yet.
The game tracks your GDP over time, and will give you both quarterly and annual prints. It takes about two hours of game time to collect enough data to get a full GDP reading, so be aware of that. In your stats, the large GDP number is your current quarterly rate, and the smaller number is the annual rate. One game "year" is roughly equivalent to one real life hour. The quarterly and annual growth percentages also factor GBT price inflation into their calculations, so that large fluctuations in GBT prices do not throw the GDP growth values way off. In addition, the game ai now has "economic analysts" who will try to guess what your GDP growth rate should be every quarter, based on the trends of the last year, and will let you know each quarter if you were on target or below estimates. It's sort of like watching CNBC.
I might start adding other fun little news items to the GBT price ticker on the bottom of the screen too.
Next, there is a new feature that I hope people are able to have some fun with. I have added the ability in-game to stream a live feed of your game play onto your colony website at my-colony.com. On supported platforms, there will now be a "Streaming" button in the bottom right corner of the screen. When you click on it, it will start up your live feed and turn Red, letting you know that it is on.
It also uses your microphone (if available and you give it permission) so that people watching your stream can hear your amazing voice-over commentary. Also when you turn on streaming, the in-game chat channel and the chat channel on your my-colony.com colony site are synchronized, so that you can text-chat directly with those viewing your feed. You will also get a notification in-game when somebody starts watching your live feed.
The in-game streaming works if you are playing on Chrome, Android, Native Client/Steam. It does not currently work on iOS or Windows 10 (Store) edition of the game. I am not sure about Facebook Game Center, as I did not test it.
Moving on, I have decided to merge the in-game popup Commonwealth and Diplomacy windows into the main Statistics window, so that everything is in one place. In-game private messaging will also be moving to this window soon, and eventually, a revamped in-game encyclopedia will be in there as well. I just think it's better to have all of the options in one tidy place.
You may have also noticed a new "Federation" option at the bottom. Federations are headed in-game to My Colony. I have been promising them for a year and a half now, and since I decided to focus on online play for the next couple of months, Federations went ahead and made the cut.
Creating or joining a Federation requires "government level 7", which is game-engine speak for "you need to build the Hall of Congress." This is pretty much the most expensive building in the game, and before now it hasn't really done anything for you. Now it unlocks Federations. Because of this requirement, only United Earth and LIS can make or join Federations, but Reptilians and Zolarg will be getting their own equivalent buildings in 0.76.0.
The only thing you can do with Federations right now is either make one, or join one. Making one is expensive, and joining one is free. However, when you choose to join a Federation, current federation members receive a ballot in their Federation screen and must vote to approve your membership.
Balloting works like this. When a new measure is put up, it will expire in three days. At the end of three days, the yays and nays are counted, and the winner is determined. However, if a measure receives yays (or nays) from over 50% of current Federation members before the three days are up, the vote is also ended.
The balloting system only works for admitting members right now, but it is going to be greatly expanded. Unlike Commonwealths, Federations are an "alliance of equals", with each independent member state getting 1 vote. One colony will be the president, voted on by the other members. The President will be able to put new initiatives up to a vote, and only the president can put a new initiative up, unless that initiative is a vote of no-confidence in the President, which could be needed if the current president goes inactive.
Federations are going to be able to do things that regular colonies cannot do and, for those who wish to enable it, there is going to be an optional PVP element coming for Federations making use of Star Ships. I am not talking about attacking peoples bases or anything, but you might be able to send your fleet to blockade a planet, disrupt communications, etc. I am welcome to ideas on it, but this element will be 100% optional, and you can only do the PVP mode with Federation members who have enabled it. I want people to still be able to play a 100% peaceful mode if they wish.
The Federations are in the early stages, but there will be new Federation stuff with each update, so feel free to start one up and start accepting members, so you are ready for when the fun stuff goes live.
So those are the primary new things in this update, I am sure there are others, but I don't remember off the top of my head. Now I just want to give a quick update on what is coming next.
As I mentioned, Federations are going to be fleshed out over the next few updates. In addition, both Federations and non-federation planets will be able to establish Trade Routes using their Star Ships, and the Colonial Map from the my-colony.com website is going to be accessible in-game soon to aid in this. There are also new interactions coming for Embassies, some of which will only be available to PVP Federations. To support this, both Zolarg and Reptilians are getting new giant 'Hall of Congress' type building soon, as well as Star Ship production.
There are also going to be further changes made to the My Colony website to accommodate all of the new stuff. Federations will each have their own page, and unlike Commonwealths, there will be a few customization options for a Federation page. If you haven't looked at the My Colony website recently, check it out, I've been adding things here and there over the last few weeks: https://www.my-colony.com/
Finally, in-game moderators are on the way. I have several applications, and will be contacting people with offers as soon as the server is ready for them. There is still a bit of server work I need to do to accommodate what I want to do with moderation, but I think when it's all implemented, it will make the online experience a lot better for everybody.
So that is all for this update. This one took me longer than normal to put together, and I have to spend the next few days catching up on other projects, but I should start v0.76.0 mid next-week. Until then, enjoy the update, and it should be hitting all platforms within the coming days!
Now that My Colony has arrived on Steam (which you can find here), I have decided to shift focus a bit more away from the mobile side of things, towards the Desktop and online side of things. My Colony has always played better on the Desktop, but since the majority of users were on mobile, a lot of the design of the game had to be made with that reality in mind. As some of you already know, a few months ago, Google Play blacklisted My Colony from their store search results, cratering the mobile downloads of the game by over 90%. As a result, the My Colony user base has transformed from over 90% mobile users, to now almost 50/50 with Desktop users, spread out between my website, the Ape Apps Launcher, Windows 10, Chrome OS, Facebook Games, and now Steam. And even though the crash ratings on Google Play are back down under 2% and the downloads have picked back up slightly, it is still nowhere near where it once was. On top of that, the experience did open my eyes as to how Google Play operates, and demonstrated the risk involved with being tied so heavily to one platform. On Desktop, things are spread fairly evenly between the distribution networks (too early to tell on Steam yet), so there is a little bit of safety that comes with that situation. Plus, as I said, the game is just 10 times better on Desktop anyway.
So, just to be clear, I am not abandoning Android and iOS, and those platforms will continue to receive all of the latest updates. I am just not going to be focused on mobile first, and some features may not work on mobile platforms, as you will soon see below.
But enough of the intro, you are here to see what is new in this version, and there is quite a bit. So let's take a look!
First I want to go through some of the bugs that were addressed in this release, as one of them has a pretty large impact on later-stage Human colonies. So during this update, I discovered a mistake in the code that was majorly"nerfing" building consumption and production when the building had a very low "tick" phase. The two prime examples where the Ancient Alien Condenser and the Atmosphere Scrubber, but it would also impact buildings with tons of employees, like the Investment Bank.
Essentially, if the production/consumption tick phase was lower than that of the overall simulation's building tick phase, a bunch of update cycles for that building would get skipped, causing it to produce or consume resources at a far slower rate than it was supposed to. As far as I can tell, this issue has been baked into the game for ages, and when adding new content, I have just set the stats in a way to compensate for it, not even realizing it was there. As soon as I fixed the glitch though, the impact on Atmosphere was immediately apparent.
Ancient Alien Condensers and the Atmosphere Scrubber immediately went into "beast mode", chewing through millions of atmosphere in a matter of minutes. This brought my Atmosphere down to zero, causing all of the condensers in the colony to shut down, since they were out of "fuel". This led to an immediate water shortage which was difficult to get on top of, since I could not generate new atmosphere fast enough to keep up with the consumption of the condensers. I eventually just had to import a ton of water from the Star Gate.
Anyway, to address this, I slightly nerfed the stats on the Condenser, and introduced a new upgraded Large Atmosphere Generator to assist in rebuilding Atmosphere. I kept the Scrubbers running in beast mode though, I figured at their new consumption level, one Atmosphere Scrubber can take care of a pretty good sized colony.
So be aware of this new change, and modify your colony accordingly. I already know the bug reports section will be full of "I updated and now all of my Water is gone" reports, so just be aware of what is happening. It is not exactly a bug, but the result of the fix of a bug.
The next fix is related to Creative Mode in Region games. Basically, it didn't work before, and now it should.
Speaking of Regions, there was a glitch where Resource decay would be greatly amplified on Region maps. This has been corrected. I have also implemented several changes which I hope address the issue people have on Regions where tech/resources are lost. I cannot reproduce this issue on my own, so I hope the fix works. I know you will make me aware if it doesn't though!
Next, a lot of changes were made to the server this update. I am getting ready to add in-game moderators to My Colony, which I had hoped to have ready by now, but the server needed so many changes to accommodate for it, that I just didn't get to it. Just know that it is coming soon though.
The first big change comes with authenticated API calls. Aside from the public API's, you basically need to be logged in to your Ape Apps account to do anything on the server now. This requirement seems like a no brainer, but you have to realize that the My Colony server predates the Ape Apps Account server, and there were originally no account requirements at all.
Due to this change, the tie between your Ape Apps Account, your online colony, and the website is now pretty solid. If you happen to get banned from Ape Apps for some unrelated reason, your colony is pretty much inaccessible too, and you will need to send me an email convincing me why you should be able to get back in.
All colony resources are now stored on the server as well. They have actually been stored on the server for some time, but the server would never override the resources saved to your game file. Now it will. The server now keeps a timestamp and checksum synchronized to your online game saves, so that it can detect if you have decided to go back and restore a backup game file. This is to help detect different forms of cheating that are out there, and while restoring a backup does not flag you as a cheater, it is logged and will be available for review by the soon-to-be-announced in-game moderators.
Next up, in-game private messaging has been moved from the my-colony.com servers to the main ape-apps.com servers. As a result, you can now view and reply to your in-game private messages from right here on ape-apps.com. They will also soon be available on my-colony.com. Currently, they don't render very well on the website, but I will be making it all look pretty shortly. In-game it doesn't look much different from before, but in theory the message size limit is gone, although the game still doesn't let you write more characters. The website does though. In the coming updates though, the entire in-game messaging interface will be rewritten to take advantage of the new features available by using ape-apps.com messaging.
The next big change in the game, which I have mentioned already in another thread and some may not be pleased with, is the complete rewrite of how colonial GDP is calculated. In short, it is now an actual GDP calculation, instead of just the sum of all of your resources. So now instead of measuring just how rich you are, which anybody can attain by simply getting a big gift from another colony or from the Galactic Emperor, it is now a measure of the current productive output of all of your buildings, tax collections, and resource collections. In this way, your GDP only grows if your industrial output is growing. If you are maxed out with full storage, then your GDP will be stagnant. I might adjust it next update to have GBT profits figured into the calculation as well, since it is technically a sale of goods. I haven't decided yet.
Next, there is a new feature that I hope people are able to have some fun with. I have added the ability in-game to stream a live feed of your game play onto your colony website at my-colony.com. On supported platforms, there will now be a "Streaming" button in the bottom right corner of the screen. When you click on it, it will start up your live feed and turn Red, letting you know that it is on.
The in-game streaming works if you are playing on Chrome, Android, Native Client/Steam. It does not currently work on iOS or Windows 10 (Store) edition of the game. I am not sure about Facebook Game Center, as I did not test it.
Moving on, I have decided to merge the in-game popup Commonwealth and Diplomacy windows into the main Statistics window, so that everything is in one place. In-game private messaging will also be moving to this window soon, and eventually, a revamped in-game encyclopedia will be in there as well. I just think it's better to have all of the options in one tidy place.
Creating or joining a Federation requires "government level 7", which is game-engine speak for "you need to build the Hall of Congress." This is pretty much the most expensive building in the game, and before now it hasn't really done anything for you. Now it unlocks Federations. Because of this requirement, only United Earth and LIS can make or join Federations, but Reptilians and Zolarg will be getting their own equivalent buildings in 0.76.0.
The only thing you can do with Federations right now is either make one, or join one. Making one is expensive, and joining one is free. However, when you choose to join a Federation, current federation members receive a ballot in their Federation screen and must vote to approve your membership.
The balloting system only works for admitting members right now, but it is going to be greatly expanded. Unlike Commonwealths, Federations are an "alliance of equals", with each independent member state getting 1 vote. One colony will be the president, voted on by the other members. The President will be able to put new initiatives up to a vote, and only the president can put a new initiative up, unless that initiative is a vote of no-confidence in the President, which could be needed if the current president goes inactive.
Federations are going to be able to do things that regular colonies cannot do and, for those who wish to enable it, there is going to be an optional PVP element coming for Federations making use of Star Ships. I am not talking about attacking peoples bases or anything, but you might be able to send your fleet to blockade a planet, disrupt communications, etc. I am welcome to ideas on it, but this element will be 100% optional, and you can only do the PVP mode with Federation members who have enabled it. I want people to still be able to play a 100% peaceful mode if they wish.
The Federations are in the early stages, but there will be new Federation stuff with each update, so feel free to start one up and start accepting members, so you are ready for when the fun stuff goes live.
So those are the primary new things in this update, I am sure there are others, but I don't remember off the top of my head. Now I just want to give a quick update on what is coming next.
As I mentioned, Federations are going to be fleshed out over the next few updates. In addition, both Federations and non-federation planets will be able to establish Trade Routes using their Star Ships, and the Colonial Map from the my-colony.com website is going to be accessible in-game soon to aid in this. There are also new interactions coming for Embassies, some of which will only be available to PVP Federations. To support this, both Zolarg and Reptilians are getting new giant 'Hall of Congress' type building soon, as well as Star Ship production.
There are also going to be further changes made to the My Colony website to accommodate all of the new stuff. Federations will each have their own page, and unlike Commonwealths, there will be a few customization options for a Federation page. If you haven't looked at the My Colony website recently, check it out, I've been adding things here and there over the last few weeks: https://www.my-colony.com/
Finally, in-game moderators are on the way. I have several applications, and will be contacting people with offers as soon as the server is ready for them. There is still a bit of server work I need to do to accommodate what I want to do with moderation, but I think when it's all implemented, it will make the online experience a lot better for everybody.
So that is all for this update. This one took me longer than normal to put together, and I have to spend the next few days catching up on other projects, but I should start v0.76.0 mid next-week. Until then, enjoy the update, and it should be hitting all platforms within the coming days!
Normally when I start a My Colony update, I don't have much of a plan or idea what I am going to be adding to it, I just start working on the game and what happens, happens. But as we quickly approach the 100th update for My Colony, which will be bumped to v1.0.0, I've decided to plan out the next few updates a bit in order to make the long-awaited (but largely meaningless) v1.0.0 update something slightly more special than normal. The next three updates are going to be larger than normal and might take a bit more time than usual, but they are going to be worth it. So here are my plans for the next three releases.
v0.98.0 - The Zolarg Update
This is going to be a major content update for the Zolarg, with at least 20 new Zolarg structures, but probably more. I will be pulling hard from some of the various Zolarg suggestion threads on the forum, plus some ideas of my own. This will probably be the slowest of the coming updates, as Zolarg artwork takes me longer to make than the others. Other than fixing any syntax bugs that come up through the automated reporting, I don't expect any new features in this update beyond the Zolarg content. The plan is upgrades to existing structures and greatly expanded later-game Zolarg content to bring the civilization closer in line to the Human civs.
v0.99.0 - Interface and Reptilian Update
For this release, I will be adding a lot of new Reptilian content, although not as much as the Zolarg are getting in v0.98.0. I still expect at least 15 new structures though, so it will still be big as compared to a normal release. In addition, the game will be getting a long-requested "Move Structure" function, allowing you to move a building you have already placed. Also, mobile players will be getting a new build-confirm interface, similar to what is on Desktop, that shows the cost of the structures you are placing, and allows you to rotate before building.
v1.0.0 - Online Events Update
The v1.0.0 release is going to focus on a new feature I mentioned in another thread regarding online events. This is sort of like an online leaderboard feature where players can "compete" with one another by completing tasks for the evil Galactic Emperor and gaining experience points and rank. There are going to be two separate leaderboards, one for individual players, and one for federations. The tasks are broken into daily challenges and your score builds up throughout the month. At the end of the month, the player and federation with the top score wins, gets a payout according to what place they won, and the leaderboards reset for the next month. Winnings are going to be experience points gained for all players who complete events, and Imperial Credits, an online-only resource that gets paid out to the top three winners each month. There will be special buildings that you can add to your colony using Imperial Credits, to honor your victories. There will be no trading of Imperial Credits and you will not be able to buy them with an IAP. They are only to mark participation and victory in the Galactic Emperor challenges.
Conclusion
So that is the plan for the next few updates. After that it will be back to the normal 3-4 updates per month, although some ideas I want to explore beyond that involve adding Crime to the game, and also off-world extensions to your colony. So stay tuned for more!
v0.98.0 - The Zolarg Update
This is going to be a major content update for the Zolarg, with at least 20 new Zolarg structures, but probably more. I will be pulling hard from some of the various Zolarg suggestion threads on the forum, plus some ideas of my own. This will probably be the slowest of the coming updates, as Zolarg artwork takes me longer to make than the others. Other than fixing any syntax bugs that come up through the automated reporting, I don't expect any new features in this update beyond the Zolarg content. The plan is upgrades to existing structures and greatly expanded later-game Zolarg content to bring the civilization closer in line to the Human civs.
v0.99.0 - Interface and Reptilian Update
For this release, I will be adding a lot of new Reptilian content, although not as much as the Zolarg are getting in v0.98.0. I still expect at least 15 new structures though, so it will still be big as compared to a normal release. In addition, the game will be getting a long-requested "Move Structure" function, allowing you to move a building you have already placed. Also, mobile players will be getting a new build-confirm interface, similar to what is on Desktop, that shows the cost of the structures you are placing, and allows you to rotate before building.
v1.0.0 - Online Events Update
The v1.0.0 release is going to focus on a new feature I mentioned in another thread regarding online events. This is sort of like an online leaderboard feature where players can "compete" with one another by completing tasks for the evil Galactic Emperor and gaining experience points and rank. There are going to be two separate leaderboards, one for individual players, and one for federations. The tasks are broken into daily challenges and your score builds up throughout the month. At the end of the month, the player and federation with the top score wins, gets a payout according to what place they won, and the leaderboards reset for the next month. Winnings are going to be experience points gained for all players who complete events, and Imperial Credits, an online-only resource that gets paid out to the top three winners each month. There will be special buildings that you can add to your colony using Imperial Credits, to honor your victories. There will be no trading of Imperial Credits and you will not be able to buy them with an IAP. They are only to mark participation and victory in the Galactic Emperor challenges.
Conclusion
So that is the plan for the next few updates. After that it will be back to the normal 3-4 updates per month, although some ideas I want to explore beyond that involve adding Crime to the game, and also off-world extensions to your colony. So stay tuned for more!
cry8wolf9 said:Well maybe not so quick.
Since your taking a look at models.
Are you keeping the same model for structures? Like entertainment, government, ect.
Also what about the races? Same or are there going to be different ones? Would this be a good chance to suggest new ones?
Any lore ideas yet to base the buildings and builders on?
Sorry cry, but you might get more than you bargained for with my reply.
So I am not exactly sure what you mean by "models," but I don't want the design of the game to be limited by what was there in MC1. There might be a tendency to think "well this is just MC1 with just 3d versions of the landscape and buildings," etc, but that is not my thinking at all. There is no reason that the tech or building tree has to mimic what was in MC1, and the buildings don't just have to be 3d versions of their MC1 counterparts. There is no reason why MC1 needs to have a lander, silo, solar panel, greenhouse, refinery etc, unless they make sense in the context of the game. Same thing applies to Rovers, which is why I continue to raise the question as to whether they need to exist in the same form as they do in MC1.
This is not to say that existing MC1 stuff does not belong here, what I am trying to say is that this is an entirely new game, there is nothing wrong with starting on with a new slate.
In terms of lore/races/civs/etc. My thought is that MC2 would be on one hand smaller in scale than MC1, but at the same time much larger.
What does this mean? So My Colony 1 basically encompasses a large area of the galaxy with thousands of planets and the three principal races. And all of the races are still official "lore" for the game, of course. Additionally, a "planet" in MC1 is basically limited to a small plot of land, and you can go from a lander touching down on a dead empty world to a booming metropolis in a matter of days.
I want MC2 to feel completely different, like when your lander touches down on the Red Planet (or whatever world), you are just a lander and two tiny colonists alone on a massive, dead, empty world that you must tame, and all of the resources you need will not just be sitting there waiting for you upon arrival.
Here is how I sort of see it in my head. All lore for the game universe comes principally from the following titles: Colony Wars, Colonial Tycoon, Death 3d, My Starship, Deimos, Deimos 2 - End of the Earth, Deimos 3 - High Noon, and Sarge. If you wanted to put the story in a chronological order, I think it would go like this:
- My Colony 2
- Deimos
- Sarge
- End of the Earth
- High Noon
- Colony Wars
- Death 3d
- My Colony 1
- Colonial Tycoon
- My Starship
So that is a general overview of the MC Universe lore. The nature of My Colony 1 and 2 make them harder to place firmly on a timeline, since a game can last "years" and span throughout the whole timeline. But I do like to see My Colony 2 start at the very beginnings, not to far from our present day, because I think it would be neat to see the original few lonely colonists roughing it in hard times on a barren world, which is what going to Mars is going to be like in real life.
It has given me some ideas for some changes VS MC1 though.
In MC1 you are like a mayor or a governor starting a city. In MC2, I see the player as more of a company landing on part of a new planet for fun and for profit, but mostly for profit. You begin with a certain amount of money, and initially to get more colonists, you have to finance another launch from Earth, which results in another Lander showing up with two or three colonists. The Lander can be broken down for scrap parts once it arrives. I think you will also be able to order up a supplies lander from Earth for a lower cost, which has no colonists but whatever materials you need to order, or foot/water etc. However if another player is also on that planet and there are already colonists nearby, they may join your settlement instead of having to bring in new people. You get more money by exporting resources back to earth.
Eventually your settlement grows into a city and the nature of the game changes from one of having to ship materials to Earth for survival to a self-sustaining colony. But I think it will be a slower, more drawn out process VS MC1.
Having multiple players on a planet will also allow for a planetary economy to grow, where trade networks between settlements are made and colonists move from one player to another. Eventually a planet can be built to a point where Earth is no longer required. In MC1, each player has his own planet, but in MC2 I would rather see all players on the server on the same planet, with the planet itself being near infinite in size, with different resources and terrains on different parts on the planet. There will of course be support for multiple planets on a server, but I do not think the game will be as fun if everybody starts with their own planet, as on MC1. On MC1 it was needed because a planet was, at most, a few square miles in size. In MC2, a planet is like an actual planet.
I don't know if there will be terraforming as in MC1, or if so it will be way, way slower.
As for other civs, my plan is to just have Earth/Human. If somebody wants to create a mod with another civ built out, they are free to do so. If it's really good and they want it included in the base game, I will consider it. But it's not a part of the initial plan.
This is the first version of my document for what I would like to see three months from now. I know that more can possibly be done, but I thought that this could be a good start to show.
Let me know if any of you have other ideas that you would like to see in the next three months.
Also, when new stuff comes up, I will edit or make a new post based on the changes necessary.
Document Text in case it doesn't download:
My Colony 2: Three Months From Now
Alien Decorations:
I believe we could have a pyramid monument dedicated to the Ancient Aliens
I would like to see some Alien Light Posts for my settlements
Personally, I would like to see Alien roads in this installment of My Colony, I was thinking an Alien Aluminum and Alien Brick variants can work for this
Alien Brick can also be used for a Wall as well, and the Artifacts could add a strength buff as well
The Alien Obelisk would be another Alien Decoration that could add some character
Player Mode:
A Regional Bussing Authority would make moving around in Player Mode a lot better
A Player House would be a good spawn location to base future mechanics of respawning on, but it can work for a home point to teleport to for the near future
A Player Bank Account will lay down the foundation for the uses of Money in Player Mode
Spice Themed Buildings:
A Spice Bar should be a way to convert Spice and Rum into Money to allow Spice Worlds to have a form of Entertainment and Money generation to match the theme
A Spice Clinic would be a good theme to keep in canon about what Spice is
Spice Dessert Shop would use Spice and Sugar to generate Money and provides a bit of Entertainment as well.
An Integrated Spice Drilling Operation could also be a new addition in order to keep up with increased demand for Spice
Resources:
Pottery would be a good start to future industries in My Colony 2, especially whenever it could get expanded into potential Commonware uses, but a single Pottery Works can be good for now
A better passive Crystalline maker should be on Ice Worlds because there isn't enough of a Just Be First advantage for Ice Worlds in my opinion
Spam's Fabrication Lodge to make Alien Relics would be something good for the future uses of Relics that will benefit our settlements as well
Let me know if any of you have other ideas that you would like to see in the next three months.
Also, when new stuff comes up, I will edit or make a new post based on the changes necessary.
Document Text in case it doesn't download:
My Colony 2: Three Months From Now
Alien Decorations:
I believe we could have a pyramid monument dedicated to the Ancient Aliens
I would like to see some Alien Light Posts for my settlements
Personally, I would like to see Alien roads in this installment of My Colony, I was thinking an Alien Aluminum and Alien Brick variants can work for this
Alien Brick can also be used for a Wall as well, and the Artifacts could add a strength buff as well
The Alien Obelisk would be another Alien Decoration that could add some character
Player Mode:
A Regional Bussing Authority would make moving around in Player Mode a lot better
A Player House would be a good spawn location to base future mechanics of respawning on, but it can work for a home point to teleport to for the near future
A Player Bank Account will lay down the foundation for the uses of Money in Player Mode
Spice Themed Buildings:
A Spice Bar should be a way to convert Spice and Rum into Money to allow Spice Worlds to have a form of Entertainment and Money generation to match the theme
A Spice Clinic would be a good theme to keep in canon about what Spice is
Spice Dessert Shop would use Spice and Sugar to generate Money and provides a bit of Entertainment as well.
An Integrated Spice Drilling Operation could also be a new addition in order to keep up with increased demand for Spice
Resources:
Pottery would be a good start to future industries in My Colony 2, especially whenever it could get expanded into potential Commonware uses, but a single Pottery Works can be good for now
A better passive Crystalline maker should be on Ice Worlds because there isn't enough of a Just Be First advantage for Ice Worlds in my opinion
Spam's Fabrication Lodge to make Alien Relics would be something good for the future uses of Relics that will benefit our settlements as well
oops, I did it again, haha.
@Time, I saw you vote to not add the sea level feature and I tried to come up with a more feasible idea, so hopefully you like this one a lot better. Here goes:
Here's an idea that I just came up with. It's based on three or more different types of tile terrain, but it would need at least three, which would be the "high ground," "flat land," and "ocean floor." Bast could add 4 or more "steps" so that the system isn't too rigid as well. When the planet is completely dry, no water is present and the ocean floor is visible. When the moisture level passes a certain point, water fills the ocean floor tiles, which is what we want. However, when moisture becomes too much, water fills the flatlands, and when the player absolutely fails and stopping their moisture level from rising, the whole map is submerged. I would make the higher textures a slightly darker but identical texture to the lower textures for each planet, with each texture a little bit darker than the one below it and that would give it the sim city feel, since that's pretty much what they did for mountains in earlier sim city games. The ocean floor could be made up of several steps as well, but it should be a dirt/sandy colored texture instead of the ground around it. Also, when atmosphere is below 100k, water turns to ice and moisture is limited to a certain amount since what doesn't freeze would boil away into the vacuum of space. This would limit the ice texture to the ocean floor areas of the map, and I would still have it so that you can treat the ice like hard ground.
POLL CHANGE: The "sea level" part of the poll will apply to this idea now, since I think it would be more feasible than my first idea.
@Time, I saw you vote to not add the sea level feature and I tried to come up with a more feasible idea, so hopefully you like this one a lot better. Here goes:
Here's an idea that I just came up with. It's based on three or more different types of tile terrain, but it would need at least three, which would be the "high ground," "flat land," and "ocean floor." Bast could add 4 or more "steps" so that the system isn't too rigid as well. When the planet is completely dry, no water is present and the ocean floor is visible. When the moisture level passes a certain point, water fills the ocean floor tiles, which is what we want. However, when moisture becomes too much, water fills the flatlands, and when the player absolutely fails and stopping their moisture level from rising, the whole map is submerged. I would make the higher textures a slightly darker but identical texture to the lower textures for each planet, with each texture a little bit darker than the one below it and that would give it the sim city feel, since that's pretty much what they did for mountains in earlier sim city games. The ocean floor could be made up of several steps as well, but it should be a dirt/sandy colored texture instead of the ground around it. Also, when atmosphere is below 100k, water turns to ice and moisture is limited to a certain amount since what doesn't freeze would boil away into the vacuum of space. This would limit the ice texture to the ocean floor areas of the map, and I would still have it so that you can treat the ice like hard ground.
POLL CHANGE: The "sea level" part of the poll will apply to this idea now, since I think it would be more feasible than my first idea.
Here are my ideas for new Reptilian structures:
Reptilian Triangle of Enlightenment-
A triangle shaped research facility that is the Reptilian analogue of the research lab.
500 Ore, 30 Uranium, 150 Aluminum, 300 Antanium
New Tech- Human Rovers
15 research; Unlocks ore miner, gold miner, lumberbot, claybot, drone, diamond miner, sugar bot, and extraterrestrial builder in the slave gate. Will cost $250 to $1000. Now you can build trees, ore and gold mines, sugarcane, clay mines, and harvest diamonds.
Reptilian Microchip Factory-
Produces microchips by slave labor. Hires three managers (see later). 2 by 2 1500 ore, 1500 gold, 750 aluminum, 500 antanium, 100 uranium
Reptilian Robot Factory-
Produces robots by slave labor. Hires three managers. 2 by 2 2500 ore, 2500 gold, 1500 aluminum, 1000 antanium, 100 mc, 100 u
Fuel Power Plant-
Based on a 20th century human dictator's idea, the Reptilians take the Insectoids and burn them for a lot of power and atmosphere. Has tours and hires 5 managers. 3 by 3 5000o, 4000g, 1500al, 2500an, 250mc, 100r, 500u. Consumes robots.
Produces 5000 power and charcoal
The Mines-
Brutal working conditions for your slaves to slowly harvest the alien artifacts. Hires 10 managers. 5 by 5 15000o, 12500g, 2000 all, 5000an, 250mc, 500r, 150u. Consumes robots and 150 power.
Unholy Light Source of Death-
When their reactors become useless, the Reptilians reuse them into a very strong aqua green light source. Produces 150 power, but can easily kill your colony.
Human structures: Charcoal compresser
Manager- Middle class, $30
Thanks! Comment, add, and poll!
Reptilian Triangle of Enlightenment-
A triangle shaped research facility that is the Reptilian analogue of the research lab.
500 Ore, 30 Uranium, 150 Aluminum, 300 Antanium
New Tech- Human Rovers
15 research; Unlocks ore miner, gold miner, lumberbot, claybot, drone, diamond miner, sugar bot, and extraterrestrial builder in the slave gate. Will cost $250 to $1000. Now you can build trees, ore and gold mines, sugarcane, clay mines, and harvest diamonds.
Reptilian Microchip Factory-
Produces microchips by slave labor. Hires three managers (see later). 2 by 2 1500 ore, 1500 gold, 750 aluminum, 500 antanium, 100 uranium
Reptilian Robot Factory-
Produces robots by slave labor. Hires three managers. 2 by 2 2500 ore, 2500 gold, 1500 aluminum, 1000 antanium, 100 mc, 100 u
Fuel Power Plant-
Based on a 20th century human dictator's idea, the Reptilians take the Insectoids and burn them for a lot of power and atmosphere. Has tours and hires 5 managers. 3 by 3 5000o, 4000g, 1500al, 2500an, 250mc, 100r, 500u. Consumes robots.
Produces 5000 power and charcoal
The Mines-
Brutal working conditions for your slaves to slowly harvest the alien artifacts. Hires 10 managers. 5 by 5 15000o, 12500g, 2000 all, 5000an, 250mc, 500r, 150u. Consumes robots and 150 power.
Unholy Light Source of Death-
When their reactors become useless, the Reptilians reuse them into a very strong aqua green light source. Produces 150 power, but can easily kill your colony.
Human structures: Charcoal compresser
Manager- Middle class, $30
Thanks! Comment, add, and poll!
Here are my ideas for new Reptilian structures:
Reptilian Triangle of Enlightenment-
A triangle shaped research facility that is the Reptilian analogue of the research lab.
500 Ore, 30 Uranium, 150 Aluminum, 300 Antanium
New Tech- Human Rovers
15 research; Unlocks ore miner, gold miner, lumberbot, claybot, drone, diamond miner, sugar bot, and extraterrestrial builder in the slave gate. Will cost $250 to $1000. Now you can build trees, ore and gold mines, sugarcane, clay mines, and harvest diamonds.
Reptilian Microchip Factory-
Produces microchips by slave labor. Hires three managers (see later). 2 by 2 1500 ore, 1500 gold, 750 aluminum, 500 antanium, 100 uranium
Reptilian Robot Factory-
Produces robots by slave labor. Hires three managers. 2 by 2 2500 ore, 2500 gold, 1500 aluminum, 1000 antanium, 100 mc, 100 u
Fuel Power Plant-
Based on a 20th century human dictator's idea, the Reptilians take the Insectoids and burn them for a lot of power and atmosphere. Has tours and hires 5 managers. 3 by 3 5000o, 4000g, 1500al, 2500an, 250mc, 100r, 500u. Consumes robots.
Produces 5000 power and charcoal
The Mines-
Brutal working conditions for your slaves to slowly harvest the alien artifacts. Hires 10 managers. 5 by 5 15000o, 12500g, 2000 all, 5000an, 250mc, 500r, 150u. Consumes robots and 150 power.
Unholy Light Source of Death-
When their reactors become useless, the Reptilians reuse them into a very strong aqua green light source. Produces 150 power, but can easily kill your colony.
Human structures: Charcoal compresser
Manager- Middle class, $30
Thanks! Comment, add, and poll!
Reptilian Triangle of Enlightenment-
A triangle shaped research facility that is the Reptilian analogue of the research lab.
500 Ore, 30 Uranium, 150 Aluminum, 300 Antanium
New Tech- Human Rovers
15 research; Unlocks ore miner, gold miner, lumberbot, claybot, drone, diamond miner, sugar bot, and extraterrestrial builder in the slave gate. Will cost $250 to $1000. Now you can build trees, ore and gold mines, sugarcane, clay mines, and harvest diamonds.
Reptilian Microchip Factory-
Produces microchips by slave labor. Hires three managers (see later). 2 by 2 1500 ore, 1500 gold, 750 aluminum, 500 antanium, 100 uranium
Reptilian Robot Factory-
Produces robots by slave labor. Hires three managers. 2 by 2 2500 ore, 2500 gold, 1500 aluminum, 1000 antanium, 100 mc, 100 u
Fuel Power Plant-
Based on a 20th century human dictator's idea, the Reptilians take the Insectoids and burn them for a lot of power and atmosphere. Has tours and hires 5 managers. 3 by 3 5000o, 4000g, 1500al, 2500an, 250mc, 100r, 500u. Consumes robots.
Produces 5000 power and charcoal
The Mines-
Brutal working conditions for your slaves to slowly harvest the alien artifacts. Hires 10 managers. 5 by 5 15000o, 12500g, 2000 all, 5000an, 250mc, 500r, 150u. Consumes robots and 150 power.
Unholy Light Source of Death-
When their reactors become useless, the Reptilians reuse them into a very strong aqua green light source. Produces 150 power, but can easily kill your colony.
Human structures: Charcoal compresser
Manager- Middle class, $30
Thanks! Comment, add, and poll!
I got one for ya.
I currently have a colony sitting pretty at 1977/1977 colonists/housing
I also had 1977/1977 jobs available/filled
I built 8 Lumber Yards a good bit away from the rest of the colony (Aesthetic choice, they're by my tree farms), and I have not built any housing for them yet, as I like to do the math and match up jobs to houses so I keep people employed and happy in homes.
Almost the instant the Lumber Yards are done, three of them are fully staffed and three more have 1-2 workers each. Okay, I figured some people decided to be manly and work at the LY instead of something else, and after a quick look several buildings are now short workers.
BUT!
When I went to look at my Economy tab and available jobs, it showed that I had 1984/2041 jobs filled. I still have 1977/1977 colonists/housing....And of course mid typing this, the numbers revert back to 1977/2041...Is there a way to keep colonists happy and stay in the jobs that they pick up that are like 5 blocks away from their homes instead of going to one 20+ blocks away?
This is on the PC in a Chrome window.
I currently have a colony sitting pretty at 1977/1977 colonists/housing
I also had 1977/1977 jobs available/filled
I built 8 Lumber Yards a good bit away from the rest of the colony (Aesthetic choice, they're by my tree farms), and I have not built any housing for them yet, as I like to do the math and match up jobs to houses so I keep people employed and happy in homes.
Almost the instant the Lumber Yards are done, three of them are fully staffed and three more have 1-2 workers each. Okay, I figured some people decided to be manly and work at the LY instead of something else, and after a quick look several buildings are now short workers.
BUT!
When I went to look at my Economy tab and available jobs, it showed that I had 1984/2041 jobs filled. I still have 1977/1977 colonists/housing....And of course mid typing this, the numbers revert back to 1977/2041...Is there a way to keep colonists happy and stay in the jobs that they pick up that are like 5 blocks away from their homes instead of going to one 20+ blocks away?
This is on the PC in a Chrome window.
Firstly, sorry for the recent errors on the website. I have been making a ton of changes and improvements, but you know how it goes with me, and sometimes things break!
That being said, there are three new profile settings you can set for your wall/profile.
Before, you could set the display style of your wall to either Forum or Blog, which would give you either your own personal forum section, or your own blog. Now there are three new settings you can pick:
Static Page
It's just what it sounds like. You can make your profile a static page now using any BB code from the reference. Use it to post information, info about yourself, links to your own projects, or whatever.
Photo Wall
The Photo Wall basically just displays all pictures which you have uploaded to the page. There are going to be expanded picture capabilities soon, so this type will be improving in the weeks ahead. It will also be getting the "infinite scrolling" feature, instead of using page numbers.
Recent Posts
You can also set your wall to just show your most recent posts and replies. Going forward, this is going to be the new default setting for all new accounts created after this moment.
So anyway, there you have is for the new Wall options. I was thinking of adding the Podcast function too to allow people to host their own podcast from the site, since it doubles as a fully functional podcast host (see the My Colony Podcast), but I am on the fence on that once since it could be ripe for abuse. It would be neat though.
I am making a lot off upgrades and improvements to the site over the next few weeks, so let me know of features you would like to see added/implemented/improved upon!
That being said, there are three new profile settings you can set for your wall/profile.
Before, you could set the display style of your wall to either Forum or Blog, which would give you either your own personal forum section, or your own blog. Now there are three new settings you can pick:
Static Page
It's just what it sounds like. You can make your profile a static page now using any BB code from the reference. Use it to post information, info about yourself, links to your own projects, or whatever.
Photo Wall
The Photo Wall basically just displays all pictures which you have uploaded to the page. There are going to be expanded picture capabilities soon, so this type will be improving in the weeks ahead. It will also be getting the "infinite scrolling" feature, instead of using page numbers.
Recent Posts
You can also set your wall to just show your most recent posts and replies. Going forward, this is going to be the new default setting for all new accounts created after this moment.
So anyway, there you have is for the new Wall options. I was thinking of adding the Podcast function too to allow people to host their own podcast from the site, since it doubles as a fully functional podcast host (see the My Colony Podcast), but I am on the fence on that once since it could be ripe for abuse. It would be neat though.
I am making a lot off upgrades and improvements to the site over the next few weeks, so let me know of features you would like to see added/implemented/improved upon!
Welcome to the first ICG Event!
The ICG is a community driven event to bring the players together in one space to have fun with the game in various unique and interesting ways! The Intergalactic Colonial Games (or ICG) is our branding of the many events and activities that NOZ will be hosting! With a wide variety of events and prizes, we will be hosting ICG events every weekend!
For more information, including the rules to these events, please visit https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=34539 before continuing.
The first event we will be hosting is... a race!
Now, what exactly is the race we have in mind you ask? Well, as the informational thread I linked above describes, a race means that participants will start an entirely new colony and race to a certain milestone to win the grand prize. The race for this event will be the collection of Civics!
Goals
There are three player groupings, with each being more challenging than the last to complete.- Group 1 is 0-250,000 population on your largest colony. The Goal will be 250,000 civics by the end of the event period.
- Group 2 is 250,000-1,000,000 population on your largest colony. The Goal will be 5,000,000 civics by the end of the event period.
- Group 3 is over 1,000,000 population on your largest colony. The Goal will be 50,000,000 civics by the end of the event period.
Prizes
These goals may seem daunting, but I assure you, they are all possible. As impossible as they may seem, there is an equally great reward! This event will not only be for fun, players may win unholy amounts of resources to the colony of their choosing by winning. So let's see some competitive spirit in here!As described in the informational thread, each tier can have up to and including 3 winners. First place will receive 3 packages of their choosing, second will receive 2, and 3rd place will receive 1 package of their choosing (each package is a large sum of one resource).
Group one may choose between the following prizes:
25,000,000
25,000,000 Ore
25,000,000 Regolith
25,000,000 Aluminum
25,000,000 Microchips
25,000,000 Gold
25,000,000 Steel
25,000,000 Alien Artifacts
25,000,000 Regolith
25,000,000 Aluminum
25,000,000 Microchips
25,000,000 Gold
25,000,000 Steel
25,000,000 Alien Artifacts
20,000,000
20,000,000 Wood
20,000,000 Charcoal
20,000,000 Oil
20,000,000 Helium
20,000,000 Ant Paste
20,000,000 Robots
20,000,000 Antanium
20,000,000 Pottery
20,000,000 Bricks
20,000,000 Uranium
20,000,000 Crystalline
20,000,000 Cloth
20,000,000 Toys
20,000,000 Clay
20,000,000 Sugar
20,000,000 Wool
20,000,000 Software
20,000,000 Diamond
20,000,000 Wheels
15,000,000
15,000,000 Alien Relic
15,000,000 Alien Instructions
15,000,000 Obsidian
5,000,000
5,000,000 Triantanium
5,000,000 Ether
Group two may choose between the following prizes:
200,000,000
200,000,000 Ore
200,000,000 Regolith
200,000,000 Aluminum
200,000,000 Microchips
200,000,000 Gold
200,000,000 Steel
200,000,000 Alien Artifacts
200,000,000 Regolith
200,000,000 Aluminum
200,000,000 Microchips
200,000,000 Gold
200,000,000 Steel
200,000,000 Alien Artifacts
150,000,000
150,000,000 Wood
150,000,000 Charcoal
150,000,000 Oil
150,000,000 Helium
150,000,000 Ant Paste
150,000,000 Robots
150,000,000 Antanium
150,000,000 Pottery
150,000,000 Bricks
150,000,000 Uranium
150,000,000 Crystalline
150,000,000 Cloth
150,000,000 Toys
150,000,000 Clay
150,000,000 Sugar
150,000,000 Wool
150,000,000 Software
150,000,000 Diamond
150,000,000 Wheels
100,000,000
100,000,000 Alien Relic
100,000,000 Alien Instructions
100,000,000 Obsidian
30,000,000
30,000,000 Triantanium
30,000,000 Ether
Group three may choose between the following prizes:
1,000,000,000
1,000,000,000 Ore
1,000,000,000 Regolith
1,000,000,000 Aluminum
1,000,000,000 Microchips
1,000,000,000 Gold
1,000,000,000 Steel
1,000,000,000 Alien Artifacts
1,000,000,000 Regolith
1,000,000,000 Aluminum
1,000,000,000 Microchips
1,000,000,000 Gold
1,000,000,000 Steel
1,000,000,000 Alien Artifacts
800,000,000
800,000,000 Wood
800,000,000 Charcoal
800,000,000 Oil
800,000,000 Helium
800,000,000 Ant Paste
800,000,000 Robots
800,000,000 Antanium
800,000,000 Pottery
800,000,000 Bricks
800,000,000 Uranium
800,000,000 Crystalline
800,000,000 Cloth
800,000,000 Toys
800,000,000 Clay
800,000,000 Sugar
800,000,000 Wool
800,000,000 Software
800,000,000 Diamond
800,000,000 Wheels
600,000,000
600,000,000 Alien Relic
600,000,000 Alien Instructions
600,000,000 Obsidian
300,000,000
300,000,000 Triantanium
300,000,000 Ether
As you can see, the prizes are well worth your time and are designed to be a great boost to anyone in the game. The top prizes are difficult to get, but they are possible.
How to enter?
It's simple! Just comment your name in game here and tell us you want to enter! You are also required to join our dedicated events commonwealth in order to enter. The charter code for the commonwealth will be revealed when the event starts. We need to know what your colony name you will be registering as will be in advance. You may put [ICG] in your colony name as, though this is not required, it will make our jobs easier when running the event.When we know the name of the participant, we can give you a small boost just to get started with to avoid the tedium of the early game. Players will receive all of the following:
5,000 Ore
4,000 Steel
3,000 Gold
2,000 Microchips
2,000 Wheels
This event will begin on the 16/11/2019 so we will accept applications to join until then! Once more, the event duration will be 1 week from the starting date.
Upon completion the event goal, comment that you have done so on this thread. We will then review your colony history before acknowledging you have completed the event.
Of course all rules and regulations must be followed by all participants. These may be found in the informational thread https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=34539Contact us!
Though not a requirement to participate in the events, I encourage everyone who is interested in the events to drop by the NOZ discord server for a great My Colony community. NOZ has a lot of very experienced players, whom are also very active in game. To learn more about us, please join us here at https://discord.gg/qqCswpFGood luck with the events, and may the odds be ever in your favour.
Today the finishing touches are going into My Colony v1.2.0 and the patch should be hitting all platforms and app stores over the coming days. Although this is v1.2.0, it's really more like v1.0.0 Part 3, as it mainly features more cleanup from the fallout of the major engine changes introduced in the v1.0.0 patch. It is my hope that, with this patch, the engine changes are mostly stabilized and I can finally move on to some more interesting updates. That said, there are also some new structures and features coming along for the ride in this patch, so let's take a look at what is new!
Firstly, more engine tweaks have been made in regards to health, medical, and the colonist lifecycle. In addition to other minor tweaks, colonists will now enter the workforce at an earlier age (14) and retire at a later age (75 I think). Retired colonists will now start dying off at a faster rate too.
The University has been buffed a bit, and it now has a student capacity of 6,500.
In this update, I have now added the ability for players to fine-tune their industrial capacity on a per-building level. If you open the building stats window on a structure that has workers, you will see two new slider control bars.
The Production Priority slider will let you control which buildings fill up with workers first. This setting has been requested for a long time, and now it's a reality. The higher you set this, the higher this building will be prioritized against other worksites. Keep in mind that there are still other factors which are considered, including distance, building condition, and eventually crime (more on that later). However, the Production Priority setting is the #1 factor when colonists are being assigned jobs by the engine (unless the jobsite is simply out of range).
In addition, the new Employment Capacity slider is useful for when you want a worksite to be up and operational, but you want to free up some of the labor to work in other buildings. For example, if a building takes 50 workers and you set the slider at around 50%, then only 25 of the jobs will be filled. The total output of a building depends on how many workers it has, but when you are trying to prioritize your production in specific ways, this new control setting should come in handy.
Finally, three new structures have been added in this release, the Medium Hospital, Transcendent Medical Clinic, and the Large Stadium. All three are upgrades to existing buildings, and offer increased capacity and efficiency.
Next I want to take a moment to welcome all of the new players to My Colony! The game has seen an increase in downloads over the last few weeks, so I just want to welcome all of the new players to the game, and to the My Colony community! If you have any questions, suggestions, or bug reports, this forum is a great place for all of that. Our community is not huge, but there are a lot of experienced players here who are always willing to provide help and answers to your questions. And a large percentage of the content and features in this game have come directly from community feedback and suggestions, people just like you posting something they wanted to see added to the game. So feel free to bounce your ideas and suggestions off in the suggestions forum!
And finally, the next two updates are going to feature Crime and Mass Transit. I don't know which one will come first, but those are the next two. The Crime update will feature various Police Station and Prison type structures, and crimes will be committed in areas of low land value and low IQ. The Mass Transit will be in the form of a train station with rail, and will allow people to work in buildings that are normally outside of their regular range. When used in region mode, the Mass Transit will also allow workers to live and work in different cities. Eventually the Mass Transit will include an underground subway system, but probably not right away, as it will be more work to implement an entire subterranean layer to the game.
I am also going to be adding a way to "return" existing buildings to your building queue. This is sort of like the current "move" feature, except the building just goes away and there will be a number on the construction sidebar indicating that there is a building of that typed queued up for move. Then, you will be able to place those buildings again, without construction time or cost. You will only be able to do this on buildings that are able to be moved, non-resource drop off points.
So anyway, that's all for today's update. Hope you enjoyed it, hope you all had a Happy New Year, and stay tuned for more!
Firstly, more engine tweaks have been made in regards to health, medical, and the colonist lifecycle. In addition to other minor tweaks, colonists will now enter the workforce at an earlier age (14) and retire at a later age (75 I think). Retired colonists will now start dying off at a faster rate too.
The University has been buffed a bit, and it now has a student capacity of 6,500.
In this update, I have now added the ability for players to fine-tune their industrial capacity on a per-building level. If you open the building stats window on a structure that has workers, you will see two new slider control bars.
The Production Priority slider will let you control which buildings fill up with workers first. This setting has been requested for a long time, and now it's a reality. The higher you set this, the higher this building will be prioritized against other worksites. Keep in mind that there are still other factors which are considered, including distance, building condition, and eventually crime (more on that later). However, the Production Priority setting is the #1 factor when colonists are being assigned jobs by the engine (unless the jobsite is simply out of range).
In addition, the new Employment Capacity slider is useful for when you want a worksite to be up and operational, but you want to free up some of the labor to work in other buildings. For example, if a building takes 50 workers and you set the slider at around 50%, then only 25 of the jobs will be filled. The total output of a building depends on how many workers it has, but when you are trying to prioritize your production in specific ways, this new control setting should come in handy.
Finally, three new structures have been added in this release, the Medium Hospital, Transcendent Medical Clinic, and the Large Stadium. All three are upgrades to existing buildings, and offer increased capacity and efficiency.
Next I want to take a moment to welcome all of the new players to My Colony! The game has seen an increase in downloads over the last few weeks, so I just want to welcome all of the new players to the game, and to the My Colony community! If you have any questions, suggestions, or bug reports, this forum is a great place for all of that. Our community is not huge, but there are a lot of experienced players here who are always willing to provide help and answers to your questions. And a large percentage of the content and features in this game have come directly from community feedback and suggestions, people just like you posting something they wanted to see added to the game. So feel free to bounce your ideas and suggestions off in the suggestions forum!
And finally, the next two updates are going to feature Crime and Mass Transit. I don't know which one will come first, but those are the next two. The Crime update will feature various Police Station and Prison type structures, and crimes will be committed in areas of low land value and low IQ. The Mass Transit will be in the form of a train station with rail, and will allow people to work in buildings that are normally outside of their regular range. When used in region mode, the Mass Transit will also allow workers to live and work in different cities. Eventually the Mass Transit will include an underground subway system, but probably not right away, as it will be more work to implement an entire subterranean layer to the game.
I am also going to be adding a way to "return" existing buildings to your building queue. This is sort of like the current "move" feature, except the building just goes away and there will be a number on the construction sidebar indicating that there is a building of that typed queued up for move. Then, you will be able to place those buildings again, without construction time or cost. You will only be able to do this on buildings that are able to be moved, non-resource drop off points.
So anyway, that's all for today's update. Hope you enjoyed it, hope you all had a Happy New Year, and stay tuned for more!
Here is a collection on concepts that I am leaning towards for My Colony 2 as of today (20200624). This is all subject to change and I can be convinced by the community of anything, so keep the suggestions and feedback coming. This is going to be a super long post featuring all of my thoughts on MC2 thus far. Feel free to criticize anything and everything here. My feelings will not be hurt and nothing is set in stone. This is a starting point for community discussion to help make MC2 the best game it can be!
Relationship to My Colony 1
MC2 is an entire new game, not an upgrade to the original, or a version 2.0. It may use completely different concepts. It will not be tied in to the same server. Game files will not transfer over, as MC2 will probably have completely different buildings/tech tree, etc.
This does not mean that MC1 will be going away. I will continue to support the original and the server indefinitely. I realize that a lot of people like the style of game that MC1 is and do not want anything to change, so the original is staying where it is. It may continue to receive new content as well as bug fixes, but I do not plan on any further changes to the gameplay mechanics or core engine going forward.
That said, as long as MC1 remains popular and people keep playing it and paying for it, I will keep the game going.
Business Model/Monetizing
This is the least fun part of development, but a necessary one in order to make creating a game feasible. The business model for MC1 was tacked on as an afterthought, and reflecting back I do not like the concept of certain structures and units being premium.
None of this is set in stone, but here are my initial thoughts on the business model. My Colony 2 will be a straight paid app on all app stores, with everything unlocked at the base price, no in-app purchases. No advertising anywhere. The exception is on Ape Web Apps and the Ape Market, where it will be free, everything unlocked, but with no access to multiplayer or custom content. Maybe only one map type available.
Current My Colony 1 is basically already like this on Desktop, with the mobile client being free with additional IAP, so this change just makes the mobile version match up with what is already on desktop.
Now, I do anticipate the dissatisfaction of Android players not having the free version in the Play Store. However, Android support for Progressive Web Apps is sufficiently advanced now that you can just install the Web version to your homescreen like an app and it's hardly any different. Same with iOS. And MC1 will still be available for free like it always has been.
No free version on the mobile app stores will likely mean less players, and I understand this. But I like the idea of just buying a game and having the whole thing, not worrying about IAP's and not having any advertising.
Client/Server Structure
The biggest change to MC2 is it's design from the ground up as a multiplayer game. This does not mean that you cannot play single player, but it is being designed specifically for multiplayer.
MC1 has limited multiplayer, which basically consists of chat and trading/gifting resources. You can play together on a multiplayer region, but all you are really doing is sharing atmosphere and seeing thumbnails of other players' colonies. Not really very multiplayery (is that a word?). The MC1 multiplayer is also global and centralized, meaning everything has to go through the global My Colony server.
My Colony 2 multiplayer will be decentralized, meaning no global server that everybody plays on. Why am I doing this, because it seems like a downgrade? Look at every game out there with real global multiplayer, not just chat and trading. That takes massive infrastructure, and you pay for it with either a monthly subscription or endless IAP's. That's the only way it's really possible, and I don't think anybody wants that if you really stop and think it through.
The only realistic way to add real multiplayer to the game without investing in a massive infrastructure and charging big money for the game is to decentralize it. And since I am not Blizzard and do not want to spend my whole life maintaining MC2 servers, I am adopting a decentralized approach.
What does this mean? My Colony 2 will actually be designed as two separate applications in one, the client and the server.
The game client will be fairly light weight. It's job is to receive data from the server application and render it to the screen, and pass instructions as to what the player wants to do onto the server. That's pretty much it, and it should be fairly performant. Even though the game is moving to 3d, I still expect it to perform better than MC1, simply because 3d hardware rendering performs better than 2d software rendering.
The game server is much more interesting and is where all of the game mechanics take place, but since the server does not have to worry about handling the UI or making drawing calls, it actually has a bit more overhead to work with than on MC1. The two most expensive operations in MC1 are the rendering and the pathfinding. In MC2, the server is eliminating the rendering, and I also want to greatly reduce the pathfinding, leaving more headroom for actual fun stuff, like game mechanics simulation.
So in MC2, the game relationship is between client(s) and server. Whenever you create a new game in MC2, you are creating a new server, and then connecting to it with a client. The server is saved and retained between plays, where the client only exists while it is in use, and is not saved. So the point I just want to get across is that the client is really not that important, the server is.
The server and client code are both included in the My Colony 2 game. You will have the option of starting a regular game or creating a dedicated server. When you start a regular game, you are spinning up both a client and server and creating a 1-1 connection between the two right on your device. You can also make your game joinable by friends or others on your local network for multiplayer.
You can also create a dedicated server. When you create a MC2 dedicated server, you will be presented with a special server GUI that allows you to be in full control of the game. The server will continue to process game data as long as it is running, even if no players/clients are connected. A dedicated server will be able to establish custom game rules and parameters, and have mods installed that will be transferred to any client who connects. You will be able to make a dedicated server open to the public, or by invite only, or by specifying a list of accounts who are able to join. It's up to the server. A dedicated server will be able to moderate it's players however they want, the server can adjust resource levels, ban players for cheating, or anything. It's all up to the server owner.
The game data is saved only on the server, and the server owner will be responsible for making backups. I expect game files to be a lot bigger than MC1, so I am not going to be implementing Cloud Sync, which is known to cause corruption on larger files anyway. The ability to export and backup data will be built right into the game as usual.
Because of the way it's designed, even if you only want to play single player, it still may be desirable to set up a private dedicated server. For instance, you could run a private MC2 dedicated server on your powerful home PC that is always on/connected to the internet. Then you can connect to your server from your tablet/phone/laptop/another window on your computer, wherever you are, and your game is always there waiting for you, and all of the processing is being done on the more powerful computer.
The Game World/Game Files
In MC1, the game world is divided into cities and regions, and each city is a separate game file. In MC2, there are no cities and regions, there are planets.
This is something I am aping from Minecraft. A planet is like a regular city file in MC1, except is extends out in every direction to infinity, so you do not have to worry about running out of space for your city. A planet can have multiple cities and multiple players building cities at the same time.
Planets will be procedurally generated, and new areas will be generated in real-time as needed. Each planet type will have different biomes like in Minecraft, so that different environments and different resources are available in different parts on the planet.
This system means that you will have to build up trade networks with other cities or make additional settlement outposts across the planet in order to bring more resource types back to your colony. In MC1, practically every resource in the game is available with a square mile of your lander. This doesn't really make sense. In MC2 you will have to go out and find resources, and then build up a network for bringing them back into your city.
Technically, the MC2 world is still a big 2d grid like in MC1, but each tile does have an elevation, a z-index, for varied terrain elevations. Different resources might be found at different elevations and in different biomes. You will also be able to adjust the terrain in-game, like building up dirt to level out construction areas. There will be flat areas good for building, low canyons, and hilly or mountainous areas.
Also like in Minecraft, the terrain is generated on the fly and only transferred to the client in "chunks" as needed. So your client will only contain the data for the area that you are currently looking at, and the immediate surrounding areas. As you scroll around the map, areas you are no longer looking at will be disposed from memory as new areas are loaded from the server.
Construction / Resource Gathering and Rovers
I would really like to get rid of Rovers completely and simulate everything. It's not that I hate rovers, they are so helpful and adorable. The issue is with the pathfinding. Just driving rovers around the map takes up a huge percentage of the MC1 processing time, for what is essentially a visual effect.
Pathfinding is both CPU and memory intensive on anything larger than a medium sized MC1 map, and in MC2 the map sizes are being expanded infinitely larger. It's not just as simple as "only path finding around a certain area from the rover." Before you can even calculate pathfinding operations, you first have to generate a pathfinding map and load it into memory. The maps will be more expensive than in MC1 owing to the introduction of terrain elevation, as there will now be cliffs to work around. Each time a new structure is placed the pathfinding map needs to be recalculated. With the game being multiplayer, this will have to be taking place on a larger scale. It is one of the features holding MC1 back, due to all of the CPU time that must be dedicated to solving rover paths.
The issue of course, is that everybody likes rovers. Even I like rovers. Would the game be less fun without them? I don't know. If you could just turn off Rover Rendering in the engine settings and you didn't even see them, but everything continued to operate as normal, would it make a difference to the game, or would it matter? Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't.
Everything a Rover does can be simulated for a fraction of the CPU and memory cost.
This is the largest part of MC2 that I don't have an answer to. I can't just remove rovers because that would be a blow to the fans of MC1. I also cringe thinking of all of the months wasted on optimizing path finding and the 1 star complaints about performance, all relating to a path finding feature in what is essentially a city building game.
There are options.
I could always just keep rovers in the game as they are and just keep working around the processing issues that come with it. In a single player game or a server with only a few active players at once, it probably wouldn't be a very big hit.
I have also considered just simulating rovers, sort of like colonists are just simulated in MC1. For example, you don't even have to build your own rovers. But when you place a new construction order, little rovers drive up onto the construction site and build your building anyway. These rovers do not exist on the server, but you see them building on the client. Same way for moving resources around. On the server it is just simulated, but on the client, you see a rover driving around doing all of the work. This would still require path finding, but each client would be doing their own path finding on the visual rover effect, and the player could turn it off if it became a performance issue.
If the client could just visually simulate things like rovers, colonists, police cars, busses, etc, they would all still be there visually making your city look alive, but the server wouldn't even have to worry about them.
Maybe there are other options too that I am not thinking of? All feedback on Rovers is welcome. I want the game to be performant, but I also don't want to go against the fans, so please let me know what you think either way.
Graphics
MC1 is a software rendered game using the HTML5 canvas element, arranging .png and .svg tile images onto a 2d isometric grid. Most of the graphics processing is done by the main CPU and not the graphics card, so graphics performance is largely defined by how good your processor is. This is why the game runs a lot better on desktop vs mobile, or even on iPhone vs android, and iPhone processors tend to be a bit better.
The problems is that the CPU also has to process the game, so trying to do everything at once gets expensive, especially on mobile devices.
My Colony 2 is moving to WebGL for graphics processing, which is a javascript based implementation of OpenGL that handles rendering on the GPU. This should lead to far better performance on most devices.
My original idea was to use Blender for all of the games building models. The graphics were going to be awesome. But when I dug into Blender and started working with it, I remembered how I am not actually a graphics designer, and it was going to take me forever to make all of the models for this game.
My other idea was to make blocky pixelated type graphics using my own Voxel Paint application (https://www.apewebapps.com/voxel-paint/). This means lower quality visuals but much higher output and probably better rendering performance as well. It's also so easy to use that anybody could make their own MC2 models, my wife even offering to help design structures for the game (she is a big Minecraft fan).
At the end of the day, My Colony 1 was never known for high quality graphics, but I thought that with MC2 I could really make it look great. After putzing around with Blender though, I have to acknowledge my own personal limitations. Basically, I can either spend months learning how to make great 3d models in Blender, or I can spend months working on the game code. I know which one I'd rather do. So I am probably going to go with the pixelated look, simply because it is something that I can actually do myself within a realistic timeframe, and it will also go well with the next point I'm about to explain, which is modding.
I know some people will not like a pixelated looking game. This is one of those areas where I have to say "tough," unless somebody is willing so supply me with hundreds of 3d models free of charge, which is what it is going to take in order to do this properly.
Modding
Customization is going to be huge in MC2 compared to the original. Given the global online multiplayer in MC1, custom content could not realistically be allowed in the game. The decentralized nature of MC2 changes everything though, and modding and customization, as well as all of the tools needed to make it happen, are going to be baked right into the client.
In MC2, the basic "unit" of the game is the building. Everything is going to be pretty much based on buildings, and their relationship to each other. This is basically how MC1 works as well, so this is nothing new. What is going to be knew is My Colony 2's build in Building Editor.
I am going to be creating MC2 using the games' bulit-in editor, and so the same editor I use to make the game is going to be available to all players.
Each building in the game is going to be stored as a building file, and the base game will ship with all of its standard building files, which will be loaded at runtime. This differs from MC1 where all building data is stored in a single JSON file that is shipped with the game, which cannot be easily edited.
A building file will contain three parts.
The first is the JSON formatted definition data, with information about the name of the building, what it does, what it generates, etc. All of the properties that a building can have will be stored in that data.
The second part is the model information, which will essentially be an embedded Voxel Paint file.
The third part is a small (maybe like 64x64 pixel) thumbnail or icon representing the building, which will show up on the construction sidebar and various places throughout the UI.
The three above parts are all packaged into a single file which can be added to the game client, posted online for easy sharing, or what have you. A dedicated server can include custom building files that will automatically be distributed to clients when they join the game. Each building file will have a unique UUID and version information, so if a client already has the same version of a building file that a server does, it will not need to re-transfer the data upon connection.
This system is actually a very powerful change over the original My Colony, and unlocks essentially limitless possibilities for the game. This also makes it a lot easier for the community to participate in development of the game. A creator who makes a great building idea can distribute it online where it is tested out and balanced by the community. If it works in practice and everyone likes it, the file can be included in the base game.
If you want to host a crazy dedicated server with a bunch of custom buildings that totally change the game, you can do so.
I have no idea what kind of buildings people will dream up, but including the content creation tools right into the base game will be huge, I hope. And I plan on making the process as easy as I possibly can, so that anybody can create a building. Using Voxel Paint, if you have an idea and the ability to build a house in Minecraft, you should be able to make it a reality. And being able to make something and then instantly import it into your game makes it simple to test out concepts and balance them right there on your own device.
It's possibly that nobody will care about modding or making buildings, but it still doesn't hurt to add the tools right into the game. If nothing else, it will still make it easier for me to create new content for updates, versus having to go through and edit JSON data manually.
However, it's also possible that everybody will be making custom content and the game takes off in crazy directions that we never even imagined!
It could even be possible to allow mod creators to somehow sell their mods in-game and get paid in real money, maybe through PayPal or something. That is a thought for another day though, and not a current actual plan.
Conclusion
These are my current thoughts on MC2 as of this day. Like I said, nothing is set in stone yet and everything is subject to change. I wanted to put everything out there so that the community knows what page I am on and where I am headed, and has time to stop me if I am about to drive over a cliff.
Remember that I am open to all feedback, so if you have ideas, please don't just be quite about it, or don't just complain about them in a Discord chat somewhere, because I probably will not see them. Part of being a game developer is getting hate e-mail on a regular basis on why my games suck, so believe me that your being critical of the above ideas will not hurt my feelings, and will be nothing new to me.
The whole purpose of doing all of this beforehand is to get real feedback from the community so that MC2 can go in a direction that we all like and we will all have fun playing. Once I start getting into the code, it gets harder and harder to make changes, so if there is something you don't like, now is the time to mention it. Think of all of the things I could not effectively implement in MC1 because they would require massive time-consuming changes to the entire engine. So getting ideas in right now is how we avoid that.
Like MC1, I'm trying to make something fun that I myself want to play, not a game that is going to just nickel and dime players with constant ads and IAPs so I can sit on a yacht somewhere. I think the new decentralized play model will allow the game to outlast the original. Basically, if I get in a wreck and die, the MC1 server will be forever down within a few weeks. With MC2, once players can make their own servers and create their own content right from within the game, what happens to me becomes more irrelevant, which is the way it should be.
Anyway, if you got this far, then thanks for reading my small novel. Please give some thoughts to where you want to see the game go, or discuss it with other players and really think about all of the concepts I laid out here. I want to start working on the game soon, maybe as early as mid-next month. I plan to start with the world-generating engine and the in-game building creation tools first, so people can start testing that out and seeing what it is like to make their own content.
So between now and then, if any of the above ideas are way off the mark, I need to know now. So think about it, let me know, and thanks for helping me create the follow-up to My Colony. I think it's going to be fun!
Relationship to My Colony 1
MC2 is an entire new game, not an upgrade to the original, or a version 2.0. It may use completely different concepts. It will not be tied in to the same server. Game files will not transfer over, as MC2 will probably have completely different buildings/tech tree, etc.
This does not mean that MC1 will be going away. I will continue to support the original and the server indefinitely. I realize that a lot of people like the style of game that MC1 is and do not want anything to change, so the original is staying where it is. It may continue to receive new content as well as bug fixes, but I do not plan on any further changes to the gameplay mechanics or core engine going forward.
That said, as long as MC1 remains popular and people keep playing it and paying for it, I will keep the game going.
Business Model/Monetizing
This is the least fun part of development, but a necessary one in order to make creating a game feasible. The business model for MC1 was tacked on as an afterthought, and reflecting back I do not like the concept of certain structures and units being premium.
None of this is set in stone, but here are my initial thoughts on the business model. My Colony 2 will be a straight paid app on all app stores, with everything unlocked at the base price, no in-app purchases. No advertising anywhere. The exception is on Ape Web Apps and the Ape Market, where it will be free, everything unlocked, but with no access to multiplayer or custom content. Maybe only one map type available.
Current My Colony 1 is basically already like this on Desktop, with the mobile client being free with additional IAP, so this change just makes the mobile version match up with what is already on desktop.
Now, I do anticipate the dissatisfaction of Android players not having the free version in the Play Store. However, Android support for Progressive Web Apps is sufficiently advanced now that you can just install the Web version to your homescreen like an app and it's hardly any different. Same with iOS. And MC1 will still be available for free like it always has been.
No free version on the mobile app stores will likely mean less players, and I understand this. But I like the idea of just buying a game and having the whole thing, not worrying about IAP's and not having any advertising.
Client/Server Structure
The biggest change to MC2 is it's design from the ground up as a multiplayer game. This does not mean that you cannot play single player, but it is being designed specifically for multiplayer.
MC1 has limited multiplayer, which basically consists of chat and trading/gifting resources. You can play together on a multiplayer region, but all you are really doing is sharing atmosphere and seeing thumbnails of other players' colonies. Not really very multiplayery (is that a word?). The MC1 multiplayer is also global and centralized, meaning everything has to go through the global My Colony server.
My Colony 2 multiplayer will be decentralized, meaning no global server that everybody plays on. Why am I doing this, because it seems like a downgrade? Look at every game out there with real global multiplayer, not just chat and trading. That takes massive infrastructure, and you pay for it with either a monthly subscription or endless IAP's. That's the only way it's really possible, and I don't think anybody wants that if you really stop and think it through.
The only realistic way to add real multiplayer to the game without investing in a massive infrastructure and charging big money for the game is to decentralize it. And since I am not Blizzard and do not want to spend my whole life maintaining MC2 servers, I am adopting a decentralized approach.
What does this mean? My Colony 2 will actually be designed as two separate applications in one, the client and the server.
The game client will be fairly light weight. It's job is to receive data from the server application and render it to the screen, and pass instructions as to what the player wants to do onto the server. That's pretty much it, and it should be fairly performant. Even though the game is moving to 3d, I still expect it to perform better than MC1, simply because 3d hardware rendering performs better than 2d software rendering.
The game server is much more interesting and is where all of the game mechanics take place, but since the server does not have to worry about handling the UI or making drawing calls, it actually has a bit more overhead to work with than on MC1. The two most expensive operations in MC1 are the rendering and the pathfinding. In MC2, the server is eliminating the rendering, and I also want to greatly reduce the pathfinding, leaving more headroom for actual fun stuff, like game mechanics simulation.
So in MC2, the game relationship is between client(s) and server. Whenever you create a new game in MC2, you are creating a new server, and then connecting to it with a client. The server is saved and retained between plays, where the client only exists while it is in use, and is not saved. So the point I just want to get across is that the client is really not that important, the server is.
The server and client code are both included in the My Colony 2 game. You will have the option of starting a regular game or creating a dedicated server. When you start a regular game, you are spinning up both a client and server and creating a 1-1 connection between the two right on your device. You can also make your game joinable by friends or others on your local network for multiplayer.
You can also create a dedicated server. When you create a MC2 dedicated server, you will be presented with a special server GUI that allows you to be in full control of the game. The server will continue to process game data as long as it is running, even if no players/clients are connected. A dedicated server will be able to establish custom game rules and parameters, and have mods installed that will be transferred to any client who connects. You will be able to make a dedicated server open to the public, or by invite only, or by specifying a list of accounts who are able to join. It's up to the server. A dedicated server will be able to moderate it's players however they want, the server can adjust resource levels, ban players for cheating, or anything. It's all up to the server owner.
The game data is saved only on the server, and the server owner will be responsible for making backups. I expect game files to be a lot bigger than MC1, so I am not going to be implementing Cloud Sync, which is known to cause corruption on larger files anyway. The ability to export and backup data will be built right into the game as usual.
Because of the way it's designed, even if you only want to play single player, it still may be desirable to set up a private dedicated server. For instance, you could run a private MC2 dedicated server on your powerful home PC that is always on/connected to the internet. Then you can connect to your server from your tablet/phone/laptop/another window on your computer, wherever you are, and your game is always there waiting for you, and all of the processing is being done on the more powerful computer.
The Game World/Game Files
In MC1, the game world is divided into cities and regions, and each city is a separate game file. In MC2, there are no cities and regions, there are planets.
This is something I am aping from Minecraft. A planet is like a regular city file in MC1, except is extends out in every direction to infinity, so you do not have to worry about running out of space for your city. A planet can have multiple cities and multiple players building cities at the same time.
Planets will be procedurally generated, and new areas will be generated in real-time as needed. Each planet type will have different biomes like in Minecraft, so that different environments and different resources are available in different parts on the planet.
This system means that you will have to build up trade networks with other cities or make additional settlement outposts across the planet in order to bring more resource types back to your colony. In MC1, practically every resource in the game is available with a square mile of your lander. This doesn't really make sense. In MC2 you will have to go out and find resources, and then build up a network for bringing them back into your city.
Technically, the MC2 world is still a big 2d grid like in MC1, but each tile does have an elevation, a z-index, for varied terrain elevations. Different resources might be found at different elevations and in different biomes. You will also be able to adjust the terrain in-game, like building up dirt to level out construction areas. There will be flat areas good for building, low canyons, and hilly or mountainous areas.
Also like in Minecraft, the terrain is generated on the fly and only transferred to the client in "chunks" as needed. So your client will only contain the data for the area that you are currently looking at, and the immediate surrounding areas. As you scroll around the map, areas you are no longer looking at will be disposed from memory as new areas are loaded from the server.
Construction / Resource Gathering and Rovers
I would really like to get rid of Rovers completely and simulate everything. It's not that I hate rovers, they are so helpful and adorable. The issue is with the pathfinding. Just driving rovers around the map takes up a huge percentage of the MC1 processing time, for what is essentially a visual effect.
Pathfinding is both CPU and memory intensive on anything larger than a medium sized MC1 map, and in MC2 the map sizes are being expanded infinitely larger. It's not just as simple as "only path finding around a certain area from the rover." Before you can even calculate pathfinding operations, you first have to generate a pathfinding map and load it into memory. The maps will be more expensive than in MC1 owing to the introduction of terrain elevation, as there will now be cliffs to work around. Each time a new structure is placed the pathfinding map needs to be recalculated. With the game being multiplayer, this will have to be taking place on a larger scale. It is one of the features holding MC1 back, due to all of the CPU time that must be dedicated to solving rover paths.
The issue of course, is that everybody likes rovers. Even I like rovers. Would the game be less fun without them? I don't know. If you could just turn off Rover Rendering in the engine settings and you didn't even see them, but everything continued to operate as normal, would it make a difference to the game, or would it matter? Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't.
Everything a Rover does can be simulated for a fraction of the CPU and memory cost.
This is the largest part of MC2 that I don't have an answer to. I can't just remove rovers because that would be a blow to the fans of MC1. I also cringe thinking of all of the months wasted on optimizing path finding and the 1 star complaints about performance, all relating to a path finding feature in what is essentially a city building game.
There are options.
I could always just keep rovers in the game as they are and just keep working around the processing issues that come with it. In a single player game or a server with only a few active players at once, it probably wouldn't be a very big hit.
I have also considered just simulating rovers, sort of like colonists are just simulated in MC1. For example, you don't even have to build your own rovers. But when you place a new construction order, little rovers drive up onto the construction site and build your building anyway. These rovers do not exist on the server, but you see them building on the client. Same way for moving resources around. On the server it is just simulated, but on the client, you see a rover driving around doing all of the work. This would still require path finding, but each client would be doing their own path finding on the visual rover effect, and the player could turn it off if it became a performance issue.
If the client could just visually simulate things like rovers, colonists, police cars, busses, etc, they would all still be there visually making your city look alive, but the server wouldn't even have to worry about them.
Maybe there are other options too that I am not thinking of? All feedback on Rovers is welcome. I want the game to be performant, but I also don't want to go against the fans, so please let me know what you think either way.
Graphics
MC1 is a software rendered game using the HTML5 canvas element, arranging .png and .svg tile images onto a 2d isometric grid. Most of the graphics processing is done by the main CPU and not the graphics card, so graphics performance is largely defined by how good your processor is. This is why the game runs a lot better on desktop vs mobile, or even on iPhone vs android, and iPhone processors tend to be a bit better.
The problems is that the CPU also has to process the game, so trying to do everything at once gets expensive, especially on mobile devices.
My Colony 2 is moving to WebGL for graphics processing, which is a javascript based implementation of OpenGL that handles rendering on the GPU. This should lead to far better performance on most devices.
My original idea was to use Blender for all of the games building models. The graphics were going to be awesome. But when I dug into Blender and started working with it, I remembered how I am not actually a graphics designer, and it was going to take me forever to make all of the models for this game.
My other idea was to make blocky pixelated type graphics using my own Voxel Paint application (https://www.apewebapps.com/voxel-paint/). This means lower quality visuals but much higher output and probably better rendering performance as well. It's also so easy to use that anybody could make their own MC2 models, my wife even offering to help design structures for the game (she is a big Minecraft fan).
At the end of the day, My Colony 1 was never known for high quality graphics, but I thought that with MC2 I could really make it look great. After putzing around with Blender though, I have to acknowledge my own personal limitations. Basically, I can either spend months learning how to make great 3d models in Blender, or I can spend months working on the game code. I know which one I'd rather do. So I am probably going to go with the pixelated look, simply because it is something that I can actually do myself within a realistic timeframe, and it will also go well with the next point I'm about to explain, which is modding.
I know some people will not like a pixelated looking game. This is one of those areas where I have to say "tough," unless somebody is willing so supply me with hundreds of 3d models free of charge, which is what it is going to take in order to do this properly.
Modding
Customization is going to be huge in MC2 compared to the original. Given the global online multiplayer in MC1, custom content could not realistically be allowed in the game. The decentralized nature of MC2 changes everything though, and modding and customization, as well as all of the tools needed to make it happen, are going to be baked right into the client.
In MC2, the basic "unit" of the game is the building. Everything is going to be pretty much based on buildings, and their relationship to each other. This is basically how MC1 works as well, so this is nothing new. What is going to be knew is My Colony 2's build in Building Editor.
I am going to be creating MC2 using the games' bulit-in editor, and so the same editor I use to make the game is going to be available to all players.
Each building in the game is going to be stored as a building file, and the base game will ship with all of its standard building files, which will be loaded at runtime. This differs from MC1 where all building data is stored in a single JSON file that is shipped with the game, which cannot be easily edited.
A building file will contain three parts.
The first is the JSON formatted definition data, with information about the name of the building, what it does, what it generates, etc. All of the properties that a building can have will be stored in that data.
The second part is the model information, which will essentially be an embedded Voxel Paint file.
The third part is a small (maybe like 64x64 pixel) thumbnail or icon representing the building, which will show up on the construction sidebar and various places throughout the UI.
The three above parts are all packaged into a single file which can be added to the game client, posted online for easy sharing, or what have you. A dedicated server can include custom building files that will automatically be distributed to clients when they join the game. Each building file will have a unique UUID and version information, so if a client already has the same version of a building file that a server does, it will not need to re-transfer the data upon connection.
This system is actually a very powerful change over the original My Colony, and unlocks essentially limitless possibilities for the game. This also makes it a lot easier for the community to participate in development of the game. A creator who makes a great building idea can distribute it online where it is tested out and balanced by the community. If it works in practice and everyone likes it, the file can be included in the base game.
If you want to host a crazy dedicated server with a bunch of custom buildings that totally change the game, you can do so.
I have no idea what kind of buildings people will dream up, but including the content creation tools right into the base game will be huge, I hope. And I plan on making the process as easy as I possibly can, so that anybody can create a building. Using Voxel Paint, if you have an idea and the ability to build a house in Minecraft, you should be able to make it a reality. And being able to make something and then instantly import it into your game makes it simple to test out concepts and balance them right there on your own device.
It's possibly that nobody will care about modding or making buildings, but it still doesn't hurt to add the tools right into the game. If nothing else, it will still make it easier for me to create new content for updates, versus having to go through and edit JSON data manually.
However, it's also possible that everybody will be making custom content and the game takes off in crazy directions that we never even imagined!
It could even be possible to allow mod creators to somehow sell their mods in-game and get paid in real money, maybe through PayPal or something. That is a thought for another day though, and not a current actual plan.
Conclusion
These are my current thoughts on MC2 as of this day. Like I said, nothing is set in stone yet and everything is subject to change. I wanted to put everything out there so that the community knows what page I am on and where I am headed, and has time to stop me if I am about to drive over a cliff.
Remember that I am open to all feedback, so if you have ideas, please don't just be quite about it, or don't just complain about them in a Discord chat somewhere, because I probably will not see them. Part of being a game developer is getting hate e-mail on a regular basis on why my games suck, so believe me that your being critical of the above ideas will not hurt my feelings, and will be nothing new to me.
The whole purpose of doing all of this beforehand is to get real feedback from the community so that MC2 can go in a direction that we all like and we will all have fun playing. Once I start getting into the code, it gets harder and harder to make changes, so if there is something you don't like, now is the time to mention it. Think of all of the things I could not effectively implement in MC1 because they would require massive time-consuming changes to the entire engine. So getting ideas in right now is how we avoid that.
Like MC1, I'm trying to make something fun that I myself want to play, not a game that is going to just nickel and dime players with constant ads and IAPs so I can sit on a yacht somewhere. I think the new decentralized play model will allow the game to outlast the original. Basically, if I get in a wreck and die, the MC1 server will be forever down within a few weeks. With MC2, once players can make their own servers and create their own content right from within the game, what happens to me becomes more irrelevant, which is the way it should be.
Anyway, if you got this far, then thanks for reading my small novel. Please give some thoughts to where you want to see the game go, or discuss it with other players and really think about all of the concepts I laid out here. I want to start working on the game soon, maybe as early as mid-next month. I plan to start with the world-generating engine and the in-game building creation tools first, so people can start testing that out and seeing what it is like to make their own content.
So between now and then, if any of the above ideas are way off the mark, I need to know now. So think about it, let me know, and thanks for helping me create the follow-up to My Colony. I think it's going to be fun!
HELLO COMMANDERS!
I just had an amazing discussion with @Luker124 about what will happen in Colony Wars.
Here, I'm presenting the ideas about the story of Colony Wars, involving all 4 civilizations.
Pre-War
In the vast Milky Way Galaxy, lies 3 great civilizations - The Humans, the Insectoids, and the Reptilians.
Humans are the new rising galactic power - The establishment of United Earth government changed everything. The rebirth of humanity from the disastrous failure, with all the humans together. Making achievements beyond what Roman Empire had, the extensive colonization has brought new unimagined opportunities and prosperity.
However, the corruption does not disappear as the dawn of a new era shines on the humans - the desire of the powerful politicians are endless. Further tightened security policy on member colonies, unreasonably heavy taxations, and even legitimating exploitation of labour, all these are just for benefiting those with power, at the cost of those powerless, and breaking their promise of a free and fair society (though the promise had always been a lie since the beginning).
Ruled by a corrupt government, with no will to reform, more and more people of this new commonwealth, especially from the lower classes and colonies, were not happy with this situation. With some of them having strong anti-commonwealth sentiment and advocating overthrowing the General Assembly through revolting against.
The General Assembly, of course, were always prepared to suppress resistance in their colonies using their proud Space Marines, and always actively search and destroy any hidden insurgents in their vast commonwealth. Despite their efforts, the opposition was not silenced, it was growing stronger and stronger, under the support of an organisation they had not discovered yet - LIS.
Meanwhile, with their neglecting attitude on galactic politics, they were not aware that another new threat from afar had already been approaching them.
League of Independent States, abbreviated as LIS, had been working in the shadows for decades, waiting and preparing for a best chance starting a decisive independence war, to free people from tyranny under the United Earth General Assembly.
There was not yet any concrete information about where and when this organisation was founded. Only one thing is surely correct about them - Where people suffer, where they are, and they're here to resist tyranny.
Despite United Earth government already expecting there would be ‘insurgents’, however, their influence were far beyond than they expected, especially in colonies with strong opinions opposing policies of United Earth - LIS influence grew through means of secret propagandas, cooperation with black markets, and even providing planning support to anti-commonwealth activities.
Unlike United Earth, they were aware of the importance of galactic diplomacy, they understood they were not able to fight Space Marines without sufficient external support, even having thousands and millions of militias ready to fight. They had one potent choice, known from the black market intel - Zolarg Empire, which LIS recently established contact with them.
The Insectoid Empire of Zolarg, or simply Zolarg Empire, was also a recent rising power. Once enslaved by Alpha Draconians, they revolted against slavery a century ago and retrieved their civilization from the hands of Reptilians, under the leadership of their wise and brave leader - Emperor Zolarg.
Emperor Zolarg is eager to develop their civilization to a new level, for restoring the dignity of their race, and stop the history of being conquered by anybody else. Through their agricultural knowledge from their ancestors, industrial knowledge stolen from Alpha Draconians, and their own newly pioneered bioengineering, their hard power had been thousand times stronger than the beginning. In the same time, the social and cultural development of the Empire had reached new heights, with ancient religious traditions and technological advancements coexisting in harmony (except the use of… ‘soulless’ robots still under debate), and a successful communal society for large populations.
The new page of Insectoid history was indeed glorious, but not easy. Even they successfully set foot to become a supernova of galactic power, it did not mean Alpha Draconians won't take their revenge someday, sooner or later, and also most of their brothers still not freed from slavery. Their primary mission was still further strengthening their national power, and if possible, finding an ally, in order to fight against the almost all-powerful Alpha Draconians.
The Reptilian Empire of Alpha Draconians, or more referred to as Alpha Draconians, is an old warlike civilization with a strong national pride, that existed longer than other civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy before The Ancients (that disappeared for unknown reasons). One of their possible origins was they were migrant Reptilians from another galaxy, as told in their historical documents.
Alpha Draconians had vast territories in the Galaxy obtained from conquests and annexation, but their name was not well known in the galaxy - Due to their secret style of ruling. Only some powerful political figures, and those under direct rule, know about their existence. Their spies and covert agents widespread across the Galaxy, watching over people, controlling propagandas, delivering absolute orders to their puppet governments, and assassinating any opposition or disobeyed, everything were under the will of the Inner Circle of Lords, and the supreme leader Overlord.
Not just having a strong secret influence, most of their national power are unmatched. Having the most superior technologies, sophisticated industrial machines, most educated elites and a ruthless robot army (that is especially feared by the Zolarg Empire). What are these national powers being built on? The effort of others - slaves, tributes and stealing.
The old empire might still look well, but with more and more problems rising within. Since the Insectoid Uprising and establishment of the Zolarg Empire, they are losing more cities and slaves, shaking their economy and national pride to their foundations. With economy performance dropping year by year, and the core Reptilian society began questioning the ‘invincibility’ of the empire, the Overlord had been facing heavy pressure. Meanwhile, another political crisis was emerging between the Inner Circle and the Overlord - the competition for the throne of absolute power.
Overlord, eager to strengthen his power, planned to begin another conquest, to search for manpower and resources, and, of course, attempt to prove Alpha Draconians was still invincible. And their eyes were set on a civilization - Humans. At the blink of a civil war, and having a corrupt government, a perfect target for Alpha Draconians to secretly intervene, disrupt, and ultimately, conquer them with the might of war machines once they were exhausted fighting.
The Beginning of the War - Terra Nova Incident
Coincidentally, both LIS and Alpha Draconians were looking for a good chance to start a war, but for different aims, different ways, and they had no connections.
The tension between human colony Terra Nova and the United Earth General Assembly had created an opportunity for them.
Terra Nova was a colony under United Earth, yet with the presence of LIS. People of Terra Nova, from workers to their governor, agreed that the United Earth government was too corrupted to rule them, decided to take action in a non violent way, becoming the first colony ever to refuse paying tax to the General Assembly.
Alpha Draconians understood what LIS was trying to do - try to provoke United Earth to take the strongest military actions ever against their people, to be a reasonable excuse to start the war. To ‘accomodate’ the needs of LIS and make progress on Overlord's plan, Alpha Draconian covert agents in the General Assembly began their covert operations, paving path to the military actions step by step, through persuading works, blackmailing and misinformation campaigns. An embargo was first being passed in 4 days, and then a blockade was passed a week later. And after 3 months of ‘debate’ and ‘arguments’, and the ‘Friday Coup’ (controlled by Alpha Draconian agent) happened within the period that caused the cleanse campaign on the opposition party, a decisive pass was made on the decision taking violent military actions against Terra Nova, ‘without’ any objections, leading to the Terra Nova Incident.
The dispatch of Space Marines 35th Regiment (SM35) had angered hundreds of colonies, and people of Terra Nova as well. Things had progressed as LIS wished, they began rallying up resistance fighters in the hideouts in Terra Nova, preparing for their final phase to begin the first phase of war - a surprise attack.
Without much resistance, SM35 occupied Terra Nova under the lead of Colonel Harold Franklin. Soon Space Marines recognised they were in a weird situation - Terra Nova did not strongly resist at all as they arrived. However, it was too late. Just a few minutes after they had noticed that, LIS militias led by a militia officer Admiral Beuford P. Tots ambushed all major forces of SM35 at every street and alleys of the city, causing heavy loss of well-equipped marines. At the same time, LIS revealed themselves in the public for the first time, declaring war on United Earth - marked the beginning of the Human Civil War.
Very soon United Earth's forces retreated from Terra Nova, leaving the colony under LIS control. LIS declared independence of this colony a day after, renamed it Independent State. This city was the command centre of LIS throughout the war, which will be the capital city of LIS after the war.
Early Human Civil War
The United Earth Security Council was in a big chaos after the Terra Nova Incident - unexpectedly attacked by an enemy and almost lost the entire SM35, and little the Security Council knew about LIS. Even though garrisons and national guards were immediately told to prepare and mobilize to respond any possible LIS attacks, however, still not able to stop LIS - either fighting at broken morale or without enough time for full preparations - Since they had no idea where LIS forces would start their attack, and these rebels were well prepared already.
LIS, taking this advantage, launched a series of scattered yet successful attacks in neighbouring systems. Just within the first two weeks of the war, United Earth lost 15 colonies, 45 main trade routes or supplies, and countless soldiers either captured or killed.
However, LIS did not have the upper hand for long - especially after the original Security Council Chairman, Bofors Kaiserton, was replaced by an experienced Marshal called Bradley R. Johnson. The Security Council was soon reorganized by Bradley to stabilise the mess, launched propaganda campaigns to restore the morale of United Earth forces, and began studying the tactics of LIS forces, which the studies could had begun at the first day of war, but got delayed to 5 days later (day 6), due to Bofors unable to stabilise the chaos.
Around 3 weeks later, under the coordination of the Security Council, LIS began losing their ambush advantage, due to their patterns being tracked by Security Council and United Earth forces began being able to predominate the battlegrounds before LIS did so, forcing LIS forces to fight against United Earth forces directly. The Battle of Ferris Mountains on day 37 was a major defeat for LIS, which the local United Earth garrison of Ferris Mountains, instead of being ambushed, baited LIS forces to their doom. The next day (day 38), LIS changed their general combat tactics from sneak-and-attack based to direct confrontation based. Since that battle the loss of United Earth was stabilized at a lower rate. The civil war reached the second stage, the period when major battles were fought.
Mid Human Civil War
Despite losing early advantages, with the introduction of newer weapons and black market technologies LIS forces were still able to maintain their offensive pose in the war for a while, still surprising United Earth forces, in various battles pushing their front straight towards the Solar System.
The most well known new weapon LIS introduced during the war was the Apollo-3500 Beam Emitter, which were equipped by their heavy infantries and installed on specially designed combat vehicles, the weapon itself is able to melt most armour into slags by emitting high energy beams. They caused large troubles to traditional armoured combat vehicles, especially proven in the Battle of Harbinger Greenlands (which led to United Earth giving up the Ares-4 System) that the 196 th Armour Regiment of United Earth experienced a brutal defeat under devastating laser fire of 44F Laser Battalion and 44G Laser Battalion of LIS.
Another major battle featuring LIS new weaponry was the Siege of New Paris that lasted for 15 days. The introduction of Javelin-E ‘Incognito’ Missiles in the last day (though a bit too late) decisively ended the battle, these missiles were designed not interceptable by AEGIS Theater Missile Defense System used by United Earth and successfully breached the fortifications of New Paris Citadel in an almost effortless way.
Meanwhile, 49 more colonies revolted against United Earth rule under LIS support, providing minor battlefronts for LIS to push forward further into United Earth territory.
Amount of LIS territory occupied reached a peak on day 59, which over one-fifth of United Earth territory was taken over.
The offensive pose of LIS lasted until United Earth, though later, also began introducing (a limited number of) experimental weapons into the battles, and the return of Space Marines Corps with upgraded equipment, reorganization and replenished manpower. From that time on, the tide of war had changed favouring United Earth, they began pushing LIS back.
Just 2 days after New Paris was occupied by LIS, this city was back in the hands of United Earth, under the strong firepower of Space Marines 12th Regiment, and LIS forces here were still too tired to fight. After the Second Battle of New Paris on day 73, LIS lost a large proportion of major forces and the overall offensive formation breached. In later times, LIS major forces were defeated one by one, setting LIS forces back quickly.
With that moment the situation largely disfavored them, LIS decided to take a risky move - Reveal and use their secret weapon stationed in New Bavaria, either to devastate United Earth capital city that would put United Earth into mess again, or at least buy some time to find a foreign ally.
The risky move was well known as the ‘Interstellar Missile Crisis’ event. On day 88, LIS broadcasted a message through hijacking the communication hub in Coloniae Leon, threatening they had a secret mass destruction weapon that could never be intercepted once launched, and its range could cover all United Earth territories - Interstellar Warp-Speed Missile (IWSM) with Disaster Warheads derived from Instant Terraforming Bomb Project data found in occupied government labs. And, the first missile, to be launched within 24 hours, would fly straight to the capital city of United Earth - planet Earth.
United Earth offensive operations were halted due to the short chaos caused by the seemed inevitable threat. The United Earth Security Council soon ordered the search for their missile base as the countdown had begun. 7 hours later they located the missile base, and 9 hours later Space Marines 2th Division arrived in New Bavaria. The battle in New Bavaria lasted for 7 hours, at the last hour the missile base was captured, with most of the IWSMs destroyed at the site immediately.
LIS did not waste the time by sacrificing their secret weapons. During the Crisis, LIS secretly contacted the Zolarg Empire and shortly reached an alliance agreement with them - for their common pursuit of freedom and liberating people from suffering, and they needed each other. The entry of the Zolarg Empire would bring the war to the third stage, the time when things had been becoming more complicated than just a civil war between Humans.
What about Alpha Draconians? The Overlord was pleased by the situation so far, the plan had been successful. While humans were busy killing each other, the Overlord ordered mobilizing their robot armies into the back of United Earth territory through means of secret portals prepared by covert agents. While Alpha Draconians were making preparations for the takeover plan, one thing the Overlord was not expected to, and not knowing would happen - the Zolarg Empire, their nemesis, would interfere with the war very soon. On the other hand, the political enemies from the Inner Circle, were scheming a plan to pull Overlord off his throne.
More Than Just a Civil War
Just when people of United Earth thought the war would be over soon with the defeat of LIS. 8 days after the Interstellar Missile Crisis (day 96), the Zolarg Empire declared war on United Earth, in the name of helping their allies - LIS, and officially began mobilizing their troops to the borders of United Earth.
War from another civilization put the United Earth under mass panic. Not just because the war that was supposed to end soon would become even longer, such a scale of invasion from another civilization of a different race was something humanity never had experienced.
Zolarg forces flanked United Earth from the other side, putting United Earth in an unfavorable situation - A war of two fronts. The back of the United Earth was left underdefended (not undefended) due to major forces being put into LIS fronts, leaving the borders only garrisoned with only a small number of troops. Even though the Security Council ordered splitting the troops to the borders in order to stop the Zolarg offensive, the border defenses were breached faster than imagined, garrisons were unable to hold the line before reinforcements had arrived. When the reinforcements reached the Zolarg fronts, a couple of cities and colonies had already been occupied by the new enemy.
At first United Earth forces on the Zolarg fronts attempted to make quick offensives against Zolarg forces in order to re-concentrate on LIS again. However, after a few offensives they found Zolarg forces were difficult to remove - Everytime an Insectoid base was ‘removed’, a new base was rebuilt quickly and pumping out loads of new troops as nothing had happened. Later they found out it was due to the Insectoids established complicated yet useful subterranean tunnel networks that allowed rapid reinforcement on the planets, with entrances hard to be detected using traditional sensors. United Earth troops on Zolarg fronts quickly changed their tactics to mainly defensive with very minimal offensive progress, until their sappers were equipped with new tunnel sensors they began able to retake some territories.
Meanwhile on the LIS fronts. Thanks to the Zolarg Empire entry into war, LIS now faced much less pressure from United Earth forces. Now they were able to at least sustain their defensive lines. After their IWPM were modified to smaller missiles and cheaper designs and put under use, they were able to make small offensive progress for a few days, still threatening some of the strategic locations of United Earth. However, the LIS fronts fell into a stalemate for the rest of time.
The unexpected news of the Zolarg Empire's intervention in the Human Civil War delivered to Alpha Draconians. Overlord was not informed about that until 6 days after the entry of the Zolarg Empire into the war - his political enemies from the Inner Circle controlled information flow in Overlord’s chamber through bribing the Imperial Informats (internal messengers of Overlord’s Chamber). The Overlord, knowing schemed by his political enemies, was angered, but also worried about his plans to secure his position in the throne. The Zolarg fronts in United Earth was exactly the location where the secret mobilization concentrated at. At this rate, his great plan would fail easily if the troops were discovered by either humans or insectoids, and it was just a matter of time, sooner or later.
With his ominous worries, the Overlord assigned extra supervisors into the Ministry of Expedition in order to secure his control on the conquest of the human race. However the Inner Circle had an upper hand - the Ministry had already been hijacked by their covert agents. The newly assigned supervisors of Overlord were soon silenced and puppeted by the Inner Circle.
The Lords of Inner Circle now had control of the Overlord’s expeditionary forces in United Earth - With just a slight attention created by the expeditionary forces to let Zolarg forces to notice, it was enough to ruin the plans of the Overlord, to further destroy his reputation, and ultimately pulling him off the throne.
The Incident that Changed the War - Barracuda Blues Events
On day 165 of the war, an event took place on colony Barracuda Blues, a colony lying behind the Zolarg fronts, inside the territories of United Earth. This incident had changed the entire war - from confrontations between mainly United Earth and LIS, to a war that 3 civilizations together defending against Alpha Draconian invasion.
Just within a night, the base on Barracuda Blues disappeared, with remains of weared-off tank armour and charred grounds indicating there was combat. The only thing left was reports about unknown alien contact of hostile inorganic objects and strong energy sources detected by base on neighbouring planets. The United Earth Security Council received the reports 8 hours after the incident had taken place. A global investigation on Barracuda Blues was ordered 2 hours later.
4 days after the investigation had launched, inspectors reported an unimaginable discovery - a hidden facility, camouflaged by cutting-edge field generators of unknown origin, full of unidentified machines in dormant status, and a colossal device suspected to be a long range stargate portal that was the origin of energy detected.
Informed about such discovery, the United Earth Security Council (cautiously) saw that as an opportunity to obtain superior military technologies that could help break the stalemate of the war. Scientist teams and more military staff were sent to the site for further secret investigation.
Despite the news being a secret, the information about such ‘discovery’ had reached the ears of LIS, their hackers intercepted the intel. The intel was shared to forces of the Zolarg Empire, in order to figure out what it was.
Zolarg forces seemed to know something - Just a couple of hours later LIS received replies from the Zolarg Empire, about warnings of a common threat from the other side of the Milky Way Galaxy had infiltrated into human civilization - Alpha Draconians. The Zolarg Empire had also sent a similar message to United Earth, and demanded evacuating the investigation site and destroying it as soon as possible.
The United Earth Security Council, at first, did not take the warning seriously, suspecting it was just a deception from both LIS and Zolarg Empire, trying to prevent United Earth from obtaining technologies that could help them win the war. Later events proved them wrong - 2 days later, the site was under attack - not by LIS, not by Zolarg Empire, but those unidentified machines they were supposed investigating. The machines were suddenly animated, hovered into the air, and revealed what they were - war machines, with the emblem of Alpha Draconians. Almost all staff at the site were killed in the matter of minutes, only a group of soldiers managed to escape, and reported their terrible story (with solid evidence recorded) to the Security Council.
Heard of such an event taking place, and reconsidering warnings from the Zolarg Empire, the Security Council decided to have the big issue discussed in the General Assembly, hopefully they could recognise the dangerous situation they were in.
Meanwhile, LIS and Zolarg Empire had also begun their search for Alpha Draconian existence within their occupation zones, and counter-ops against Alpha Draconian influence.
Under a common threat that could not be repelled with the power of a nation, three participant nations of this civil war held a close-door summit on day 178 in an United Earth city Neo Floridas under maximum security measures. On the next day, all leaders of the military came to an agreement - a ceasefire treaty that put a pause on the civil war, and a temporary alliance pact - known as ‘Delta Alliance’ by humans - that would last until the Alpha Draconians were repelled.
Exposures of Alpha Draconian expeditionary forces and the formation of a temporary alliance were quickly reported to Overlord by the covert agents within the United Earth General Assembly. Shocked to know his plan had gone wrong, the Overlord, immediately contacted his supervisors in the Ministry of Expedition. Without any response, the Overlord understood what had happened - His plan had been hijacked by the Inner Circle.
Indeed, the exposure of expeditionary forces in Barracuda Blues was the order of the Inner Circle, through the Ministry of Expedition which was under their control.
The Inner Circle also received reports of their successful sabotage on the Overlord’s plan. With now they knew the Overlord was in trouble, they began spreading the scandals of the Overlord ‘might even be unable to conquer a lesser civilization’, to cut down Overlord’s support from core Reptilian society. Now, with the information of this invasion leaked to both humans and Insectoids, and further pressured by the scandals, the Overlord had only one choice left for the invasion plan - launch the attacks immediately.
Alpha Draconian Invasion
On day 186, the day known as the ‘Invasion Day’, the remaining dormant expeditionary forces of Alpha Draconians inside human territory were activated under the orders of the Overlord himself, launched the Invasion of Humans, beginning from Barracuda Blues where their forces and one of their main portals were exposed.
The Allies were prepared, they had located and destroyed a few hidden Alpha Draconian facilities, and shared any intelligence known about Alpha Draconians. Yet were not on the upper hand. The cutting-edge war machines of Alpha Draconians was not something humans were able to deal with easily, the superior armour strength and stealth capabilities of Alpha Draconian forces had caused some significant loss of Allied forces.
On the other hand, Overlord tried to keep Zolarg Empire forces outside the war theater of human territory as first priority, preventing the Zolarg Empire from assisting humans with their intelligence and troops. Alpha Draconians inserted blockade fleets in neutral zones between the Zolarg Empire and United Earth, as well began rallying troops at Zolarg borders. The Zolarg Empire not just had difficulty helping humans defending against the invasion as their forces in United Earth were encircled, intensified conflicts and battles at Alpha Draconian borders were something they had to put more focus onto.
The invasion broke out from the inside spread like wildfire in human territory as the Zolarg Empire was not able to provide assistance. Just within a week, Alpha Draconian presence was reported in all human territories (in terms of before the civil war broke out). 58% of original human territories were occupied by Alpha Draconians within a week, mainly the areas around the Zolarg fronts.
Humans had no chances of counter strike at this moment, as the Overlord predicted. However, the Overlord had underestimated humanity. Instead of keeping an eye, he ‘confidently’ set the expeditionary to spontaneous mode, promising the core Reptilian society that humans would be brought under Alpha Draconians in no time (in order to retain his supporters).
The Counter Strike
Alpha Draconian domination on the battlefield lasted until United Earth deployed their new superweapon.
United Earth lacked new weapons of instant destruction needed to change the tide of war since the total decommission of the nuclear arsenal right after the establishment of the United Earth General Assembly. Considering reactivating the nuclear arsenal project would cause large discontent from both the General Assembly and the public due to the long term consequence of detonating nuclear weapons, the Security Council, long ago reviewed older military research projects to seek for a powerful weapon with minimal impacts upon use. And when the invasion broke out, they already had a weapon project at almost completion that came into handy - Particle Cannon. The research of this surgical-space-strike (accurate strike instead of mass destruction) weapon was greatly accelerated by the data from Alpha Draconian facility on Barracuda Blues. 14 days after the Invasion Day (day 200), the first Space Strike group had completed construction at United Earth’s capital shipyard on Earth orbit, assigned into and escorted by the only 3 main starship fleets.
Upon the new weapons were ready, Marshal Bradley of the United Earth Security Council authorized the largest military campaign in the war - Operation Zeus, which began from day 205, aimed to retake territories beyond the Zolarg fronts occupied by Alpha Draconians. Mobilizing over 54 land forces divisions, 6 Space Marines divisions, 31 space fighter wings and 2 starship fleets.
The first use of Particle Cannon was used in Battle of Leo-34, showing the impressive firepower to the entire humanity. The Alpha Draconian stronghold on the planet was reduced to scraps in the matter of a few Particle Cannon bombardments of the 3th Starship Fleet.
The particle cannon also shone on other major battles, including the largest starship battle Battle of Kelvin Rings that the superweapon put the end to Alpha Draconian ‘Eradicator’ class battleship (though that was not their strongest warship in service), and Siege of Venet-35 that the weapon critically broke the siege of Alpha Draconian forces on the colony.
Operation Zeus had achieved a massive success within two months. The Operation recovered 21% of original territories, and some post-war statistics estimated that the Operation had also destroyed almost half of the Alpha Draconian expeditionary forces.
LIS had also achieved victories after their deployment of Type-X EMP warheads that effectively paralyses robot-based Alpha Draconian forces and facilities upon detonation. Just within half of a month after the deployment, LIS was able to uproot all Alpha Draconian facilities and portals within their occupation zones and freed up a large amount of troops for offensive operations beyond their territories (to ‘liberate’ more colonies, of course). At the same time, LIS had also completed an counterintelligence research Project Beacon that analyses the activities and signals of Alpha Draconian covert agents and communications (using information provided by Zolarg and harnessing their expert knowledge of cybertechnology), greatly preventing further Alpha Draconian sabotages on Allied forces, and made the hidden movements of Alpha Draconians predictable from that time on.
The human counterattack progress stopped at regions around Barracuda Blues. At this moment Barracuda Blues was one of the last strategic locations for these intruders - where their last functional long range portal was located, the only available reinforcement station for them. However, also the most fortified position of Alpha Draconian intruders - not only the main portal was protected by the state-of-the-art fortress setup, other strongholds around Barracuda Blues formed a complete exterior defense system that was able to stop any starships approaching this critical site.
The counterattack of humans was reported back to the Ministry of Expedition for multiple times, however nobody read the report - The fierce political competition inside the Ministry between Overlord loyalist and Inner Circle had disrupted literally everything, ignited a few days after the blockade on the Zolarg Empire. Military officers and staff were being assassinated or replaced by the two parties very frequently, they had no time and effort to care about any operations of the expeditionary forces but tried to protect themselves or seek extra interest in this internal political rivalry.
As the regular functioning of the Ministry of Expedition came to a halt, the blockade fleet between Zolarg Empire and United Earth was soon out of control, without any coordination the blockade was breached by Zolarg fleets, like the blockade fleet was just a dull asteroid belt. Regaining the supply line to their occupation zones, the Zolarg Empire began sending their fleet and elite force Imperial Templars to the battlefronts in human territory against Alpha Draconians.
Overlord regained information and control of his expedition plan after Overlord loyalists successfully retaken control of the Ministry of Expedition as a series of bloody political events took place. Knowing his miscalculation on humans and he had missed a lot of events during the Ministry was handicapped, the Overlord ordered a regroup of all remaining expeditionary forces at Barracuda Blues, as well as authorising the expeditionary force access to advanced reserves of Alpha Draconian war machines, the Apocalypse Order, to terminate human resistance before it was too late to remedy the situation. An invasion fleet was also ordered to dispatch for securing the invasion plans, either backing the reinforcement up, or in case the last portal falls the fleet could still devastate the remaining human forces and do the occupation.
The Battle of Barracuda Blues - Twilight of the Intruders
All human major forces from both the United Earth and LIS, and later a small number of Zolarg forces from occupation zones, gathered near minor strongholds around Barracuda Blues. Deployments began on day 274, preparing for the last battle to stop Alpha Draconian invasion - which Allied forces had thrown literally everything they had into it, almost all of their major forces and types of weapons.
Alpha Draonians had gathered a majority of the first group of Apocalypse Order from Alpha Draconia arrived at Barracuda Blues, standing by at the site.
The Battle of Barracuda Blues broke out on day 277. The 2nd Vanguard Group led by United Earth Space Marines 1st Division secured a minor portal stronghold on Baston-36, under the support of the United Earth 3th Starship Fleet and Particle Cannons. Hackers from LIS performed a follow-up hacking of the portal control immediately, opening up a route to Barracuda Blues for major forces after 4.5 hours.
Commando platoon headed by the legendary United Earth elite Sarge led the charge into the Barracuda Blues through the portal, securing an area on the east wing of the main portal stronghold. The remaining forces of 2nd Vanguard Group established a forward base for providing support, with Main Battle Command led by Marshal Bradley of United Earth responsible for the main offensive operations following behind.
Other battle groups were told to tie up other minor strongholds to prevent their reinforcements to Barracuda Blues, and if possible, take over the portals in the minor strongholds.
The first attempts of siege, on the same day, had been unsuccessful. The defense of the main fortress complex was far more defended than imagined. The point laser defense system rendered conventional artillery fire useless, the firepower of the newly arrived Apocalypse Order outrunned offensives of the Allied forces, even the Allied forces were supported by 5th Battle Group later which successfully broke into the south wing through the portal of another stronghold. At the end of the day, the offensive operations had been temporarily halted under the order of Marshal Bradley to prevent further losses.
On day 288 Allied forces detected a larger group of Apocalypse Order reinforced Alpha Draconian forces in the fortress. Few hours later, Alpha Draconians began taking offensives targeting the Allied Main Command Group. Facing even stronger enemies than before, main forces of the Main Command Group were tied at their forward base and fell into a badly passive status, until 5th Battle Group received EMP missiles from LIS and sent help to break the enemy offensives.
On day 289, the 3rd Battle Group composed mainly of Zolarg forces entered the battle at the southern forward base, launching subterranean infiltration attacks into the west part of the fortress. Although the infiltration forces experienced heavy casualties as they broke into, however, provided an important internal structure intel of the main stronghold - there was an antenna structure acting as an command node of stronghold defense, which when sabotaged, it could weaken the coordination of, or even paralysing, the stronghold defenses. However, the infiltration forces also reported there was a massive energy flow towards the centre part of the facility, where the main portal was located, presumably sending in core forces, or worse, a destruction device known as ‘Annihilator’ by Zolarg forces which capable of releasing an energy blast that could destroy any non-Alpha Draconian machines and living being within 50 lightyears radius. The enemy reinforcement was predicted to arrive in three or four days.
The reports from the infiltration forces had put the Main Command into an anxious mood, since this meant not much time was left for them - longer the battle goes, worse the situation becomes. The Main Command Group decided to take another offensive the next day, after the United Earth 1st Starship Fleet sent Particle Cannons to provide heavy bombardments.
Still, Alpha Draconians were prepared, they had set up energy barriers to neutralize Particle Cannon fire. With even the superweapon of United Earth proven ineffective on this base, the Main Command Group offensive once again ended up with extra losses.
On the other hand, the portal stronghold connecting the Allied forward base on the south wing was under attack by Alpha Draconian forces from another minor stronghold, the 5th Battle Group and the 3th Battle group had their most convenient supply lines cut and now had to rely supplies from either the 1st Starship Fleet or the Main Command.
During the hardest times having almost no means to break the fortifications of this stronghold, the hackers and engineers controlling the portal in Baston-36 brought a good news in the late night of day 232, they managed to hack into the heavily encrypted internal portal system and obtained a segment of access code that allowed them to teleport at most a commando squad into the stronghold (due to limitations of incomplete access codes), which this chance could be used to sabotage the command node, allow the major forces destroying the fortification when it was disrupted. However, the code was estimated to be expired in approximately 7 hours.
In the same night, but a bit earlier, a small group of Zolarg Imperial Templars joined the Main Command Group, providing limited but valuable replenishment of Allied forces.
With an irreplaceable opportunity to break into this almost invincible fortress, the Main Command immediately reorganized the existing forces, preparing for an all-out attack in the next day - It was either the Alpha Draconians or humanity being defeated, this would be the last assault to terminate their ambitions, once and for all.
4 hours later, a squad with the best commandos from United Earth, LIS and Zolarg was organized for the most dangerous mission, they were teleported to the west block of the stronghold, and later assisted by another Zolarg subterranean assault force from the 3th Battle Group. Meanwhile, all the other Allied forces on Barracuda Blues, advancing towards the stronghold.
The major forces expected the defenses to be disarmed as they reached the enemy defense lines. Yet the infiltration forces had trouble making their way to the command node, encircled by the stronghold guards as the Allied forces entered the alert zones around the stronghold. The main forces could only hold their position, forced to fight with the enemy elite forces, until the commandos finished their task.
After approximately an hour of brutal battles inside and outside the stronghold, the commando squad, finally made their way to the command node, and installed a disruption device onto it.
The defenses of the stronghold were immediately turned down under the effect of the disruption device, including turrets, energy barriers and point laser defense system. The stronghold, now vulnerable to any human and Insectoid weaponry, soon the main defense was destroyed under intensive artillery barrage bombardments. Alpha Draconian forces were also affected by the disruption effects, their combat efficiency was greatly lowered - the coordination errors broke their formation, these steel machines of destruction began ramming into each other. At this moment, Alpha Draconians had lost their overwhelming advantage in this battle, every force defending the fortress were soon eliminated by the Allied forces, leaving the central portal defendless. Allied forces very quickly flooded into the stronghold, reaching their ultimate target of the battle - the main portal, which was seen charging up for receiving new reinforcements - that could make short work on the last human forces if unstopped.
The decisive battle defining the date of humans, ended with a Particle Cannon strike onto the portal, tearing the portal into pieces of scraps. The dawn on Barracuda Blues after the particle beam dissipated, marked the victory of the Allies.
Remaining Alpha Draconian threats in human territory were eliminated within two days after the victory in Battle of Barracuda Blues under the efforts of human forces. For the first time, the entire humanity successfully repelled an massive alien invasion.
The invasion had not ended yet, Alpha Draconian invasion fleet was still advancing towards human territory. It was until Zolarg fleets attacked Alpha Draconian starbases that forced Overlord to draw the entire fleet back for defense and postpone the invasion… infinitely.
Battle of Kaisergrounds - Conclusion Battle to the Human Civil War
The invasion was over, ending with the defeat of Alpha Draconians.
But not everything was over. The Delta Alliance Pact had expired, now United Earth and LIS had to put their focus back onto their civil war… only after they had taken a necessary break from a month of fierce battles.
The Zolarg Empire had most of their forces tired of the battles in human territory, and they needed more forces and officiers to manage their conflicts between them and Alpha Draconians. On day 312, about a month after the end of the invasion, they agreed to withdraw from the Human Civil War, returning all occupied territories to the United Earth and evacuate all their forces after taking some necessary responsibility (mostly repairing damages they had made), as requested by the United Earth General Assembly and agreed by LIS. The civil war was now and finally kept just between humans.
Things had been peaceful (if not considering some minor skirmishes on conflict site planets) until the war was continued with the last major battle broke out on day 351 - the Battle of Kaisergrouds, which both sides hoped to ‘conclude’ the war in this battle (as not much war supplies were left for large scale conflicts), on this strategic stronghold occupied by LIS - To LIS, a foothold for liberating the core economic regions of United Earth in the future. To United Earth, an important barrier to keep LIS away from the most resourceful colonies.
The extremely rare ion fog winters of Kaisergrounds disrupted communication devices and sensors, which however favoured United Earth offensive - their landing forces could sneak onto the planet without triggering the alarms of LIS forces.
It was not clear how the battle had fought due to the unavailability of communications and battlefield monitoring in ion fogs. However, two outcomes were confirmed for sure - First, it might have been a ‘fierce’ battle, in which United Earth recorded 78% losses of troops in the battle while LIS recorded 85% loss of their forces. Either killed or (less likely) lost in fogs. Second, it was the victory of United Earth, after 4 days of battle United Earth 12th Space Marines Regiment managed to take control of the entire planet and sent a shuttle for delivering a battle report.
Aftermath
10 days after the last battle (day 365), the military leaders of two sides met in the Roundtable Summit in the colony of New London.
The Armistice of Hoxton was signed, with the following details:
Eventually nobody achieved total victory in the Human Civil War, however, LIS actually ‘won’ the war. Colonies and cities occupied by LIS are no longer under the control of United Earth bureaucrats, they are freed from any forms of suppression and exploits, at least a better life can be started with ture fairness and autonomy guaranteed by the League.
Yet United Earth has also earned a ‘strategic’ victory, since they successfully defended most major regions, leaving LIS only able to have mostly barren planets of outer territories. The Armistice of Hoxton also allowed them to have limited control on the development of LIS.
The United Earth General Assembly was not satisfied with the outcome of the war - They understood that LIS had achieved their aim in the war. Now, the capabilities of the United Earth military were being questioned nationwide, even managed to repel the Alpha Draconian invasion - It shall be stopped to restore the reputation of the General Assembly. The General Assembly originally wanted to ‘retire’ Marshal Bradley to pacify the doubts of people, but changed their mind after reconsidering his achievements repelling an alien Invasion and read about his big military project to retake territories occupied by LIS, which the plan actually helped people put a larger confidence onto the military than before.
Speaking of the support, a tragedy for the Overlord of Alpha Draconians. The Overlord tried to cover up the failures of his expedition plans, however, the Inner Circle intercepted the intel. The scandal was soon delivered to all members of core Reptilian society, they now lost all confidence in the ‘weak’ Overlord that had completely ruined their national pride. Several days later, the Overlord was assassinated in a coup planned by the Inner Circle.
The seat of ultimate power was empty, but that is not a seat for many. A more intense, almost endless political rivalry took place between the Lords of Inner Circles beginning right after the death of Overlord, leading the entire empire into a state of political instability. Without a stable and powerful leader to rule the vast empire, the corruption in administration of Alpha Draconians is getting ten times more serious than before. Social order also began to collapse, leading to the disparity between the nobles and common civilians, and social unrests.
The instability of Alpha Draconians, and one more defeat for their seemed invincible military, gave confidence to the conspiracists hidden all over the empire. Some puppet regions began attempting to break away from Alpha Draconians. Though not all of them had been successful, more new powers have risen - Especially the New Galactic Empire, thirsted for galactic domination, is slowly overtaking the influence of Alpha Draconians in the shadows.
The Zolarg Empire finally found themselves a powerful ally to support each other against Alpha Draconian influence - Humans’ capability defending themselves against Alpha Draconian forces impressed not only the Insectoids of every hive, the Emperor is also glad to see this. A few months after the end of the Human Civil War, Zolarg Empire signed diplomatic memorandums with both LIS and United Earth, on the basis of cooperation during the invasion, to begin official peaceful interaction between Insectoids and Humans.
Zolarg forces returned from human territory also brought back some human technologies along with them. The inspiring foreign knowledge have stimulated further development of the Zolarg Empire in terms of economy, science, society and military, and indirectly led to an innovative invention of Insectoids - Mind Network.
While the human cities and colonies were rebuilding, humans also obtained interesting information from the remains of Alpha Draconian machines in Barracuda Blues. These cutting-edge machines have some linkage with the ancient aliens, which the scientists and archaeologists figured out these engines are derived from the ancient alien knowledge recorded on the artifacts scattered all around the galaxy. This discovery will bring drastic changes to human history, a new era of future technologies is predictable in the future not so far away.
Understanding they are not alone in the Galaxy, United Earth begin recognizing the importance of galactic diplomacy, in order to protect themselves (from Alpha Draconians that might return someday in a larger war), as well as seeking for new opportunities. they begin establishing contacts between alien civilizations as they colonize new planets, not just the major civilization like the Zolarg Empire, but also more minor ones.
The Milky Way Galaxy had changed a lot - although there had been wars, costing thousands of lives. Does the war worth anything in the end? Nobody will have an ultimate conclusion, what we know is, war, is always changing our history.
THAT IS ALL!
We also hope @bastecklein can leave some comments on the story idea so far.
I just had an amazing discussion with @Luker124 about what will happen in Colony Wars.
Here, I'm presenting the ideas about the story of Colony Wars, involving all 4 civilizations.
Pre-War
In the vast Milky Way Galaxy, lies 3 great civilizations - The Humans, the Insectoids, and the Reptilians.
Humans are the new rising galactic power - The establishment of United Earth government changed everything. The rebirth of humanity from the disastrous failure, with all the humans together. Making achievements beyond what Roman Empire had, the extensive colonization has brought new unimagined opportunities and prosperity.
However, the corruption does not disappear as the dawn of a new era shines on the humans - the desire of the powerful politicians are endless. Further tightened security policy on member colonies, unreasonably heavy taxations, and even legitimating exploitation of labour, all these are just for benefiting those with power, at the cost of those powerless, and breaking their promise of a free and fair society (though the promise had always been a lie since the beginning).
Ruled by a corrupt government, with no will to reform, more and more people of this new commonwealth, especially from the lower classes and colonies, were not happy with this situation. With some of them having strong anti-commonwealth sentiment and advocating overthrowing the General Assembly through revolting against.
The General Assembly, of course, were always prepared to suppress resistance in their colonies using their proud Space Marines, and always actively search and destroy any hidden insurgents in their vast commonwealth. Despite their efforts, the opposition was not silenced, it was growing stronger and stronger, under the support of an organisation they had not discovered yet - LIS.
Meanwhile, with their neglecting attitude on galactic politics, they were not aware that another new threat from afar had already been approaching them.
League of Independent States, abbreviated as LIS, had been working in the shadows for decades, waiting and preparing for a best chance starting a decisive independence war, to free people from tyranny under the United Earth General Assembly.
There was not yet any concrete information about where and when this organisation was founded. Only one thing is surely correct about them - Where people suffer, where they are, and they're here to resist tyranny.
Despite United Earth government already expecting there would be ‘insurgents’, however, their influence were far beyond than they expected, especially in colonies with strong opinions opposing policies of United Earth - LIS influence grew through means of secret propagandas, cooperation with black markets, and even providing planning support to anti-commonwealth activities.
Unlike United Earth, they were aware of the importance of galactic diplomacy, they understood they were not able to fight Space Marines without sufficient external support, even having thousands and millions of militias ready to fight. They had one potent choice, known from the black market intel - Zolarg Empire, which LIS recently established contact with them.
The Insectoid Empire of Zolarg, or simply Zolarg Empire, was also a recent rising power. Once enslaved by Alpha Draconians, they revolted against slavery a century ago and retrieved their civilization from the hands of Reptilians, under the leadership of their wise and brave leader - Emperor Zolarg.
Emperor Zolarg is eager to develop their civilization to a new level, for restoring the dignity of their race, and stop the history of being conquered by anybody else. Through their agricultural knowledge from their ancestors, industrial knowledge stolen from Alpha Draconians, and their own newly pioneered bioengineering, their hard power had been thousand times stronger than the beginning. In the same time, the social and cultural development of the Empire had reached new heights, with ancient religious traditions and technological advancements coexisting in harmony (except the use of… ‘soulless’ robots still under debate), and a successful communal society for large populations.
The new page of Insectoid history was indeed glorious, but not easy. Even they successfully set foot to become a supernova of galactic power, it did not mean Alpha Draconians won't take their revenge someday, sooner or later, and also most of their brothers still not freed from slavery. Their primary mission was still further strengthening their national power, and if possible, finding an ally, in order to fight against the almost all-powerful Alpha Draconians.
The Reptilian Empire of Alpha Draconians, or more referred to as Alpha Draconians, is an old warlike civilization with a strong national pride, that existed longer than other civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy before The Ancients (that disappeared for unknown reasons). One of their possible origins was they were migrant Reptilians from another galaxy, as told in their historical documents.
Alpha Draconians had vast territories in the Galaxy obtained from conquests and annexation, but their name was not well known in the galaxy - Due to their secret style of ruling. Only some powerful political figures, and those under direct rule, know about their existence. Their spies and covert agents widespread across the Galaxy, watching over people, controlling propagandas, delivering absolute orders to their puppet governments, and assassinating any opposition or disobeyed, everything were under the will of the Inner Circle of Lords, and the supreme leader Overlord.
Not just having a strong secret influence, most of their national power are unmatched. Having the most superior technologies, sophisticated industrial machines, most educated elites and a ruthless robot army (that is especially feared by the Zolarg Empire). What are these national powers being built on? The effort of others - slaves, tributes and stealing.
The old empire might still look well, but with more and more problems rising within. Since the Insectoid Uprising and establishment of the Zolarg Empire, they are losing more cities and slaves, shaking their economy and national pride to their foundations. With economy performance dropping year by year, and the core Reptilian society began questioning the ‘invincibility’ of the empire, the Overlord had been facing heavy pressure. Meanwhile, another political crisis was emerging between the Inner Circle and the Overlord - the competition for the throne of absolute power.
Overlord, eager to strengthen his power, planned to begin another conquest, to search for manpower and resources, and, of course, attempt to prove Alpha Draconians was still invincible. And their eyes were set on a civilization - Humans. At the blink of a civil war, and having a corrupt government, a perfect target for Alpha Draconians to secretly intervene, disrupt, and ultimately, conquer them with the might of war machines once they were exhausted fighting.
The Beginning of the War - Terra Nova Incident
Coincidentally, both LIS and Alpha Draconians were looking for a good chance to start a war, but for different aims, different ways, and they had no connections.
The tension between human colony Terra Nova and the United Earth General Assembly had created an opportunity for them.
Terra Nova was a colony under United Earth, yet with the presence of LIS. People of Terra Nova, from workers to their governor, agreed that the United Earth government was too corrupted to rule them, decided to take action in a non violent way, becoming the first colony ever to refuse paying tax to the General Assembly.
Alpha Draconians understood what LIS was trying to do - try to provoke United Earth to take the strongest military actions ever against their people, to be a reasonable excuse to start the war. To ‘accomodate’ the needs of LIS and make progress on Overlord's plan, Alpha Draconian covert agents in the General Assembly began their covert operations, paving path to the military actions step by step, through persuading works, blackmailing and misinformation campaigns. An embargo was first being passed in 4 days, and then a blockade was passed a week later. And after 3 months of ‘debate’ and ‘arguments’, and the ‘Friday Coup’ (controlled by Alpha Draconian agent) happened within the period that caused the cleanse campaign on the opposition party, a decisive pass was made on the decision taking violent military actions against Terra Nova, ‘without’ any objections, leading to the Terra Nova Incident.
The dispatch of Space Marines 35th Regiment (SM35) had angered hundreds of colonies, and people of Terra Nova as well. Things had progressed as LIS wished, they began rallying up resistance fighters in the hideouts in Terra Nova, preparing for their final phase to begin the first phase of war - a surprise attack.
Without much resistance, SM35 occupied Terra Nova under the lead of Colonel Harold Franklin. Soon Space Marines recognised they were in a weird situation - Terra Nova did not strongly resist at all as they arrived. However, it was too late. Just a few minutes after they had noticed that, LIS militias led by a militia officer Admiral Beuford P. Tots ambushed all major forces of SM35 at every street and alleys of the city, causing heavy loss of well-equipped marines. At the same time, LIS revealed themselves in the public for the first time, declaring war on United Earth - marked the beginning of the Human Civil War.
Very soon United Earth's forces retreated from Terra Nova, leaving the colony under LIS control. LIS declared independence of this colony a day after, renamed it Independent State. This city was the command centre of LIS throughout the war, which will be the capital city of LIS after the war.
Early Human Civil War
The United Earth Security Council was in a big chaos after the Terra Nova Incident - unexpectedly attacked by an enemy and almost lost the entire SM35, and little the Security Council knew about LIS. Even though garrisons and national guards were immediately told to prepare and mobilize to respond any possible LIS attacks, however, still not able to stop LIS - either fighting at broken morale or without enough time for full preparations - Since they had no idea where LIS forces would start their attack, and these rebels were well prepared already.
LIS, taking this advantage, launched a series of scattered yet successful attacks in neighbouring systems. Just within the first two weeks of the war, United Earth lost 15 colonies, 45 main trade routes or supplies, and countless soldiers either captured or killed.
However, LIS did not have the upper hand for long - especially after the original Security Council Chairman, Bofors Kaiserton, was replaced by an experienced Marshal called Bradley R. Johnson. The Security Council was soon reorganized by Bradley to stabilise the mess, launched propaganda campaigns to restore the morale of United Earth forces, and began studying the tactics of LIS forces, which the studies could had begun at the first day of war, but got delayed to 5 days later (day 6), due to Bofors unable to stabilise the chaos.
Around 3 weeks later, under the coordination of the Security Council, LIS began losing their ambush advantage, due to their patterns being tracked by Security Council and United Earth forces began being able to predominate the battlegrounds before LIS did so, forcing LIS forces to fight against United Earth forces directly. The Battle of Ferris Mountains on day 37 was a major defeat for LIS, which the local United Earth garrison of Ferris Mountains, instead of being ambushed, baited LIS forces to their doom. The next day (day 38), LIS changed their general combat tactics from sneak-and-attack based to direct confrontation based. Since that battle the loss of United Earth was stabilized at a lower rate. The civil war reached the second stage, the period when major battles were fought.
Mid Human Civil War
Despite losing early advantages, with the introduction of newer weapons and black market technologies LIS forces were still able to maintain their offensive pose in the war for a while, still surprising United Earth forces, in various battles pushing their front straight towards the Solar System.
The most well known new weapon LIS introduced during the war was the Apollo-3500 Beam Emitter, which were equipped by their heavy infantries and installed on specially designed combat vehicles, the weapon itself is able to melt most armour into slags by emitting high energy beams. They caused large troubles to traditional armoured combat vehicles, especially proven in the Battle of Harbinger Greenlands (which led to United Earth giving up the Ares-4 System) that the 196 th Armour Regiment of United Earth experienced a brutal defeat under devastating laser fire of 44F Laser Battalion and 44G Laser Battalion of LIS.
Another major battle featuring LIS new weaponry was the Siege of New Paris that lasted for 15 days. The introduction of Javelin-E ‘Incognito’ Missiles in the last day (though a bit too late) decisively ended the battle, these missiles were designed not interceptable by AEGIS Theater Missile Defense System used by United Earth and successfully breached the fortifications of New Paris Citadel in an almost effortless way.
Meanwhile, 49 more colonies revolted against United Earth rule under LIS support, providing minor battlefronts for LIS to push forward further into United Earth territory.
Amount of LIS territory occupied reached a peak on day 59, which over one-fifth of United Earth territory was taken over.
The offensive pose of LIS lasted until United Earth, though later, also began introducing (a limited number of) experimental weapons into the battles, and the return of Space Marines Corps with upgraded equipment, reorganization and replenished manpower. From that time on, the tide of war had changed favouring United Earth, they began pushing LIS back.
Just 2 days after New Paris was occupied by LIS, this city was back in the hands of United Earth, under the strong firepower of Space Marines 12th Regiment, and LIS forces here were still too tired to fight. After the Second Battle of New Paris on day 73, LIS lost a large proportion of major forces and the overall offensive formation breached. In later times, LIS major forces were defeated one by one, setting LIS forces back quickly.
With that moment the situation largely disfavored them, LIS decided to take a risky move - Reveal and use their secret weapon stationed in New Bavaria, either to devastate United Earth capital city that would put United Earth into mess again, or at least buy some time to find a foreign ally.
The risky move was well known as the ‘Interstellar Missile Crisis’ event. On day 88, LIS broadcasted a message through hijacking the communication hub in Coloniae Leon, threatening they had a secret mass destruction weapon that could never be intercepted once launched, and its range could cover all United Earth territories - Interstellar Warp-Speed Missile (IWSM) with Disaster Warheads derived from Instant Terraforming Bomb Project data found in occupied government labs. And, the first missile, to be launched within 24 hours, would fly straight to the capital city of United Earth - planet Earth.
United Earth offensive operations were halted due to the short chaos caused by the seemed inevitable threat. The United Earth Security Council soon ordered the search for their missile base as the countdown had begun. 7 hours later they located the missile base, and 9 hours later Space Marines 2th Division arrived in New Bavaria. The battle in New Bavaria lasted for 7 hours, at the last hour the missile base was captured, with most of the IWSMs destroyed at the site immediately.
LIS did not waste the time by sacrificing their secret weapons. During the Crisis, LIS secretly contacted the Zolarg Empire and shortly reached an alliance agreement with them - for their common pursuit of freedom and liberating people from suffering, and they needed each other. The entry of the Zolarg Empire would bring the war to the third stage, the time when things had been becoming more complicated than just a civil war between Humans.
What about Alpha Draconians? The Overlord was pleased by the situation so far, the plan had been successful. While humans were busy killing each other, the Overlord ordered mobilizing their robot armies into the back of United Earth territory through means of secret portals prepared by covert agents. While Alpha Draconians were making preparations for the takeover plan, one thing the Overlord was not expected to, and not knowing would happen - the Zolarg Empire, their nemesis, would interfere with the war very soon. On the other hand, the political enemies from the Inner Circle, were scheming a plan to pull Overlord off his throne.
More Than Just a Civil War
Just when people of United Earth thought the war would be over soon with the defeat of LIS. 8 days after the Interstellar Missile Crisis (day 96), the Zolarg Empire declared war on United Earth, in the name of helping their allies - LIS, and officially began mobilizing their troops to the borders of United Earth.
War from another civilization put the United Earth under mass panic. Not just because the war that was supposed to end soon would become even longer, such a scale of invasion from another civilization of a different race was something humanity never had experienced.
Zolarg forces flanked United Earth from the other side, putting United Earth in an unfavorable situation - A war of two fronts. The back of the United Earth was left underdefended (not undefended) due to major forces being put into LIS fronts, leaving the borders only garrisoned with only a small number of troops. Even though the Security Council ordered splitting the troops to the borders in order to stop the Zolarg offensive, the border defenses were breached faster than imagined, garrisons were unable to hold the line before reinforcements had arrived. When the reinforcements reached the Zolarg fronts, a couple of cities and colonies had already been occupied by the new enemy.
At first United Earth forces on the Zolarg fronts attempted to make quick offensives against Zolarg forces in order to re-concentrate on LIS again. However, after a few offensives they found Zolarg forces were difficult to remove - Everytime an Insectoid base was ‘removed’, a new base was rebuilt quickly and pumping out loads of new troops as nothing had happened. Later they found out it was due to the Insectoids established complicated yet useful subterranean tunnel networks that allowed rapid reinforcement on the planets, with entrances hard to be detected using traditional sensors. United Earth troops on Zolarg fronts quickly changed their tactics to mainly defensive with very minimal offensive progress, until their sappers were equipped with new tunnel sensors they began able to retake some territories.
Meanwhile on the LIS fronts. Thanks to the Zolarg Empire entry into war, LIS now faced much less pressure from United Earth forces. Now they were able to at least sustain their defensive lines. After their IWPM were modified to smaller missiles and cheaper designs and put under use, they were able to make small offensive progress for a few days, still threatening some of the strategic locations of United Earth. However, the LIS fronts fell into a stalemate for the rest of time.
The unexpected news of the Zolarg Empire's intervention in the Human Civil War delivered to Alpha Draconians. Overlord was not informed about that until 6 days after the entry of the Zolarg Empire into the war - his political enemies from the Inner Circle controlled information flow in Overlord’s chamber through bribing the Imperial Informats (internal messengers of Overlord’s Chamber). The Overlord, knowing schemed by his political enemies, was angered, but also worried about his plans to secure his position in the throne. The Zolarg fronts in United Earth was exactly the location where the secret mobilization concentrated at. At this rate, his great plan would fail easily if the troops were discovered by either humans or insectoids, and it was just a matter of time, sooner or later.
With his ominous worries, the Overlord assigned extra supervisors into the Ministry of Expedition in order to secure his control on the conquest of the human race. However the Inner Circle had an upper hand - the Ministry had already been hijacked by their covert agents. The newly assigned supervisors of Overlord were soon silenced and puppeted by the Inner Circle.
The Lords of Inner Circle now had control of the Overlord’s expeditionary forces in United Earth - With just a slight attention created by the expeditionary forces to let Zolarg forces to notice, it was enough to ruin the plans of the Overlord, to further destroy his reputation, and ultimately pulling him off the throne.
The Incident that Changed the War - Barracuda Blues Events
On day 165 of the war, an event took place on colony Barracuda Blues, a colony lying behind the Zolarg fronts, inside the territories of United Earth. This incident had changed the entire war - from confrontations between mainly United Earth and LIS, to a war that 3 civilizations together defending against Alpha Draconian invasion.
Just within a night, the base on Barracuda Blues disappeared, with remains of weared-off tank armour and charred grounds indicating there was combat. The only thing left was reports about unknown alien contact of hostile inorganic objects and strong energy sources detected by base on neighbouring planets. The United Earth Security Council received the reports 8 hours after the incident had taken place. A global investigation on Barracuda Blues was ordered 2 hours later.
4 days after the investigation had launched, inspectors reported an unimaginable discovery - a hidden facility, camouflaged by cutting-edge field generators of unknown origin, full of unidentified machines in dormant status, and a colossal device suspected to be a long range stargate portal that was the origin of energy detected.
Informed about such discovery, the United Earth Security Council (cautiously) saw that as an opportunity to obtain superior military technologies that could help break the stalemate of the war. Scientist teams and more military staff were sent to the site for further secret investigation.
Despite the news being a secret, the information about such ‘discovery’ had reached the ears of LIS, their hackers intercepted the intel. The intel was shared to forces of the Zolarg Empire, in order to figure out what it was.
Zolarg forces seemed to know something - Just a couple of hours later LIS received replies from the Zolarg Empire, about warnings of a common threat from the other side of the Milky Way Galaxy had infiltrated into human civilization - Alpha Draconians. The Zolarg Empire had also sent a similar message to United Earth, and demanded evacuating the investigation site and destroying it as soon as possible.
The United Earth Security Council, at first, did not take the warning seriously, suspecting it was just a deception from both LIS and Zolarg Empire, trying to prevent United Earth from obtaining technologies that could help them win the war. Later events proved them wrong - 2 days later, the site was under attack - not by LIS, not by Zolarg Empire, but those unidentified machines they were supposed investigating. The machines were suddenly animated, hovered into the air, and revealed what they were - war machines, with the emblem of Alpha Draconians. Almost all staff at the site were killed in the matter of minutes, only a group of soldiers managed to escape, and reported their terrible story (with solid evidence recorded) to the Security Council.
Heard of such an event taking place, and reconsidering warnings from the Zolarg Empire, the Security Council decided to have the big issue discussed in the General Assembly, hopefully they could recognise the dangerous situation they were in.
Meanwhile, LIS and Zolarg Empire had also begun their search for Alpha Draconian existence within their occupation zones, and counter-ops against Alpha Draconian influence.
Under a common threat that could not be repelled with the power of a nation, three participant nations of this civil war held a close-door summit on day 178 in an United Earth city Neo Floridas under maximum security measures. On the next day, all leaders of the military came to an agreement - a ceasefire treaty that put a pause on the civil war, and a temporary alliance pact - known as ‘Delta Alliance’ by humans - that would last until the Alpha Draconians were repelled.
Exposures of Alpha Draconian expeditionary forces and the formation of a temporary alliance were quickly reported to Overlord by the covert agents within the United Earth General Assembly. Shocked to know his plan had gone wrong, the Overlord, immediately contacted his supervisors in the Ministry of Expedition. Without any response, the Overlord understood what had happened - His plan had been hijacked by the Inner Circle.
Indeed, the exposure of expeditionary forces in Barracuda Blues was the order of the Inner Circle, through the Ministry of Expedition which was under their control.
The Inner Circle also received reports of their successful sabotage on the Overlord’s plan. With now they knew the Overlord was in trouble, they began spreading the scandals of the Overlord ‘might even be unable to conquer a lesser civilization’, to cut down Overlord’s support from core Reptilian society. Now, with the information of this invasion leaked to both humans and Insectoids, and further pressured by the scandals, the Overlord had only one choice left for the invasion plan - launch the attacks immediately.
Alpha Draconian Invasion
On day 186, the day known as the ‘Invasion Day’, the remaining dormant expeditionary forces of Alpha Draconians inside human territory were activated under the orders of the Overlord himself, launched the Invasion of Humans, beginning from Barracuda Blues where their forces and one of their main portals were exposed.
The Allies were prepared, they had located and destroyed a few hidden Alpha Draconian facilities, and shared any intelligence known about Alpha Draconians. Yet were not on the upper hand. The cutting-edge war machines of Alpha Draconians was not something humans were able to deal with easily, the superior armour strength and stealth capabilities of Alpha Draconian forces had caused some significant loss of Allied forces.
On the other hand, Overlord tried to keep Zolarg Empire forces outside the war theater of human territory as first priority, preventing the Zolarg Empire from assisting humans with their intelligence and troops. Alpha Draconians inserted blockade fleets in neutral zones between the Zolarg Empire and United Earth, as well began rallying troops at Zolarg borders. The Zolarg Empire not just had difficulty helping humans defending against the invasion as their forces in United Earth were encircled, intensified conflicts and battles at Alpha Draconian borders were something they had to put more focus onto.
The invasion broke out from the inside spread like wildfire in human territory as the Zolarg Empire was not able to provide assistance. Just within a week, Alpha Draconian presence was reported in all human territories (in terms of before the civil war broke out). 58% of original human territories were occupied by Alpha Draconians within a week, mainly the areas around the Zolarg fronts.
Humans had no chances of counter strike at this moment, as the Overlord predicted. However, the Overlord had underestimated humanity. Instead of keeping an eye, he ‘confidently’ set the expeditionary to spontaneous mode, promising the core Reptilian society that humans would be brought under Alpha Draconians in no time (in order to retain his supporters).
The Counter Strike
Alpha Draconian domination on the battlefield lasted until United Earth deployed their new superweapon.
United Earth lacked new weapons of instant destruction needed to change the tide of war since the total decommission of the nuclear arsenal right after the establishment of the United Earth General Assembly. Considering reactivating the nuclear arsenal project would cause large discontent from both the General Assembly and the public due to the long term consequence of detonating nuclear weapons, the Security Council, long ago reviewed older military research projects to seek for a powerful weapon with minimal impacts upon use. And when the invasion broke out, they already had a weapon project at almost completion that came into handy - Particle Cannon. The research of this surgical-space-strike (accurate strike instead of mass destruction) weapon was greatly accelerated by the data from Alpha Draconian facility on Barracuda Blues. 14 days after the Invasion Day (day 200), the first Space Strike group had completed construction at United Earth’s capital shipyard on Earth orbit, assigned into and escorted by the only 3 main starship fleets.
Upon the new weapons were ready, Marshal Bradley of the United Earth Security Council authorized the largest military campaign in the war - Operation Zeus, which began from day 205, aimed to retake territories beyond the Zolarg fronts occupied by Alpha Draconians. Mobilizing over 54 land forces divisions, 6 Space Marines divisions, 31 space fighter wings and 2 starship fleets.
The first use of Particle Cannon was used in Battle of Leo-34, showing the impressive firepower to the entire humanity. The Alpha Draconian stronghold on the planet was reduced to scraps in the matter of a few Particle Cannon bombardments of the 3th Starship Fleet.
The particle cannon also shone on other major battles, including the largest starship battle Battle of Kelvin Rings that the superweapon put the end to Alpha Draconian ‘Eradicator’ class battleship (though that was not their strongest warship in service), and Siege of Venet-35 that the weapon critically broke the siege of Alpha Draconian forces on the colony.
Operation Zeus had achieved a massive success within two months. The Operation recovered 21% of original territories, and some post-war statistics estimated that the Operation had also destroyed almost half of the Alpha Draconian expeditionary forces.
LIS had also achieved victories after their deployment of Type-X EMP warheads that effectively paralyses robot-based Alpha Draconian forces and facilities upon detonation. Just within half of a month after the deployment, LIS was able to uproot all Alpha Draconian facilities and portals within their occupation zones and freed up a large amount of troops for offensive operations beyond their territories (to ‘liberate’ more colonies, of course). At the same time, LIS had also completed an counterintelligence research Project Beacon that analyses the activities and signals of Alpha Draconian covert agents and communications (using information provided by Zolarg and harnessing their expert knowledge of cybertechnology), greatly preventing further Alpha Draconian sabotages on Allied forces, and made the hidden movements of Alpha Draconians predictable from that time on.
The human counterattack progress stopped at regions around Barracuda Blues. At this moment Barracuda Blues was one of the last strategic locations for these intruders - where their last functional long range portal was located, the only available reinforcement station for them. However, also the most fortified position of Alpha Draconian intruders - not only the main portal was protected by the state-of-the-art fortress setup, other strongholds around Barracuda Blues formed a complete exterior defense system that was able to stop any starships approaching this critical site.
The counterattack of humans was reported back to the Ministry of Expedition for multiple times, however nobody read the report - The fierce political competition inside the Ministry between Overlord loyalist and Inner Circle had disrupted literally everything, ignited a few days after the blockade on the Zolarg Empire. Military officers and staff were being assassinated or replaced by the two parties very frequently, they had no time and effort to care about any operations of the expeditionary forces but tried to protect themselves or seek extra interest in this internal political rivalry.
As the regular functioning of the Ministry of Expedition came to a halt, the blockade fleet between Zolarg Empire and United Earth was soon out of control, without any coordination the blockade was breached by Zolarg fleets, like the blockade fleet was just a dull asteroid belt. Regaining the supply line to their occupation zones, the Zolarg Empire began sending their fleet and elite force Imperial Templars to the battlefronts in human territory against Alpha Draconians.
Overlord regained information and control of his expedition plan after Overlord loyalists successfully retaken control of the Ministry of Expedition as a series of bloody political events took place. Knowing his miscalculation on humans and he had missed a lot of events during the Ministry was handicapped, the Overlord ordered a regroup of all remaining expeditionary forces at Barracuda Blues, as well as authorising the expeditionary force access to advanced reserves of Alpha Draconian war machines, the Apocalypse Order, to terminate human resistance before it was too late to remedy the situation. An invasion fleet was also ordered to dispatch for securing the invasion plans, either backing the reinforcement up, or in case the last portal falls the fleet could still devastate the remaining human forces and do the occupation.
The Battle of Barracuda Blues - Twilight of the Intruders
All human major forces from both the United Earth and LIS, and later a small number of Zolarg forces from occupation zones, gathered near minor strongholds around Barracuda Blues. Deployments began on day 274, preparing for the last battle to stop Alpha Draconian invasion - which Allied forces had thrown literally everything they had into it, almost all of their major forces and types of weapons.
Alpha Draonians had gathered a majority of the first group of Apocalypse Order from Alpha Draconia arrived at Barracuda Blues, standing by at the site.
The Battle of Barracuda Blues broke out on day 277. The 2nd Vanguard Group led by United Earth Space Marines 1st Division secured a minor portal stronghold on Baston-36, under the support of the United Earth 3th Starship Fleet and Particle Cannons. Hackers from LIS performed a follow-up hacking of the portal control immediately, opening up a route to Barracuda Blues for major forces after 4.5 hours.
Commando platoon headed by the legendary United Earth elite Sarge led the charge into the Barracuda Blues through the portal, securing an area on the east wing of the main portal stronghold. The remaining forces of 2nd Vanguard Group established a forward base for providing support, with Main Battle Command led by Marshal Bradley of United Earth responsible for the main offensive operations following behind.
Other battle groups were told to tie up other minor strongholds to prevent their reinforcements to Barracuda Blues, and if possible, take over the portals in the minor strongholds.
The first attempts of siege, on the same day, had been unsuccessful. The defense of the main fortress complex was far more defended than imagined. The point laser defense system rendered conventional artillery fire useless, the firepower of the newly arrived Apocalypse Order outrunned offensives of the Allied forces, even the Allied forces were supported by 5th Battle Group later which successfully broke into the south wing through the portal of another stronghold. At the end of the day, the offensive operations had been temporarily halted under the order of Marshal Bradley to prevent further losses.
On day 288 Allied forces detected a larger group of Apocalypse Order reinforced Alpha Draconian forces in the fortress. Few hours later, Alpha Draconians began taking offensives targeting the Allied Main Command Group. Facing even stronger enemies than before, main forces of the Main Command Group were tied at their forward base and fell into a badly passive status, until 5th Battle Group received EMP missiles from LIS and sent help to break the enemy offensives.
On day 289, the 3rd Battle Group composed mainly of Zolarg forces entered the battle at the southern forward base, launching subterranean infiltration attacks into the west part of the fortress. Although the infiltration forces experienced heavy casualties as they broke into, however, provided an important internal structure intel of the main stronghold - there was an antenna structure acting as an command node of stronghold defense, which when sabotaged, it could weaken the coordination of, or even paralysing, the stronghold defenses. However, the infiltration forces also reported there was a massive energy flow towards the centre part of the facility, where the main portal was located, presumably sending in core forces, or worse, a destruction device known as ‘Annihilator’ by Zolarg forces which capable of releasing an energy blast that could destroy any non-Alpha Draconian machines and living being within 50 lightyears radius. The enemy reinforcement was predicted to arrive in three or four days.
The reports from the infiltration forces had put the Main Command into an anxious mood, since this meant not much time was left for them - longer the battle goes, worse the situation becomes. The Main Command Group decided to take another offensive the next day, after the United Earth 1st Starship Fleet sent Particle Cannons to provide heavy bombardments.
Still, Alpha Draconians were prepared, they had set up energy barriers to neutralize Particle Cannon fire. With even the superweapon of United Earth proven ineffective on this base, the Main Command Group offensive once again ended up with extra losses.
On the other hand, the portal stronghold connecting the Allied forward base on the south wing was under attack by Alpha Draconian forces from another minor stronghold, the 5th Battle Group and the 3th Battle group had their most convenient supply lines cut and now had to rely supplies from either the 1st Starship Fleet or the Main Command.
During the hardest times having almost no means to break the fortifications of this stronghold, the hackers and engineers controlling the portal in Baston-36 brought a good news in the late night of day 232, they managed to hack into the heavily encrypted internal portal system and obtained a segment of access code that allowed them to teleport at most a commando squad into the stronghold (due to limitations of incomplete access codes), which this chance could be used to sabotage the command node, allow the major forces destroying the fortification when it was disrupted. However, the code was estimated to be expired in approximately 7 hours.
In the same night, but a bit earlier, a small group of Zolarg Imperial Templars joined the Main Command Group, providing limited but valuable replenishment of Allied forces.
With an irreplaceable opportunity to break into this almost invincible fortress, the Main Command immediately reorganized the existing forces, preparing for an all-out attack in the next day - It was either the Alpha Draconians or humanity being defeated, this would be the last assault to terminate their ambitions, once and for all.
4 hours later, a squad with the best commandos from United Earth, LIS and Zolarg was organized for the most dangerous mission, they were teleported to the west block of the stronghold, and later assisted by another Zolarg subterranean assault force from the 3th Battle Group. Meanwhile, all the other Allied forces on Barracuda Blues, advancing towards the stronghold.
The major forces expected the defenses to be disarmed as they reached the enemy defense lines. Yet the infiltration forces had trouble making their way to the command node, encircled by the stronghold guards as the Allied forces entered the alert zones around the stronghold. The main forces could only hold their position, forced to fight with the enemy elite forces, until the commandos finished their task.
After approximately an hour of brutal battles inside and outside the stronghold, the commando squad, finally made their way to the command node, and installed a disruption device onto it.
The defenses of the stronghold were immediately turned down under the effect of the disruption device, including turrets, energy barriers and point laser defense system. The stronghold, now vulnerable to any human and Insectoid weaponry, soon the main defense was destroyed under intensive artillery barrage bombardments. Alpha Draconian forces were also affected by the disruption effects, their combat efficiency was greatly lowered - the coordination errors broke their formation, these steel machines of destruction began ramming into each other. At this moment, Alpha Draconians had lost their overwhelming advantage in this battle, every force defending the fortress were soon eliminated by the Allied forces, leaving the central portal defendless. Allied forces very quickly flooded into the stronghold, reaching their ultimate target of the battle - the main portal, which was seen charging up for receiving new reinforcements - that could make short work on the last human forces if unstopped.
The decisive battle defining the date of humans, ended with a Particle Cannon strike onto the portal, tearing the portal into pieces of scraps. The dawn on Barracuda Blues after the particle beam dissipated, marked the victory of the Allies.
Remaining Alpha Draconian threats in human territory were eliminated within two days after the victory in Battle of Barracuda Blues under the efforts of human forces. For the first time, the entire humanity successfully repelled an massive alien invasion.
The invasion had not ended yet, Alpha Draconian invasion fleet was still advancing towards human territory. It was until Zolarg fleets attacked Alpha Draconian starbases that forced Overlord to draw the entire fleet back for defense and postpone the invasion… infinitely.
Battle of Kaisergrounds - Conclusion Battle to the Human Civil War
The invasion was over, ending with the defeat of Alpha Draconians.
But not everything was over. The Delta Alliance Pact had expired, now United Earth and LIS had to put their focus back onto their civil war… only after they had taken a necessary break from a month of fierce battles.
The Zolarg Empire had most of their forces tired of the battles in human territory, and they needed more forces and officiers to manage their conflicts between them and Alpha Draconians. On day 312, about a month after the end of the invasion, they agreed to withdraw from the Human Civil War, returning all occupied territories to the United Earth and evacuate all their forces after taking some necessary responsibility (mostly repairing damages they had made), as requested by the United Earth General Assembly and agreed by LIS. The civil war was now and finally kept just between humans.
Things had been peaceful (if not considering some minor skirmishes on conflict site planets) until the war was continued with the last major battle broke out on day 351 - the Battle of Kaisergrouds, which both sides hoped to ‘conclude’ the war in this battle (as not much war supplies were left for large scale conflicts), on this strategic stronghold occupied by LIS - To LIS, a foothold for liberating the core economic regions of United Earth in the future. To United Earth, an important barrier to keep LIS away from the most resourceful colonies.
The extremely rare ion fog winters of Kaisergrounds disrupted communication devices and sensors, which however favoured United Earth offensive - their landing forces could sneak onto the planet without triggering the alarms of LIS forces.
It was not clear how the battle had fought due to the unavailability of communications and battlefield monitoring in ion fogs. However, two outcomes were confirmed for sure - First, it might have been a ‘fierce’ battle, in which United Earth recorded 78% losses of troops in the battle while LIS recorded 85% loss of their forces. Either killed or (less likely) lost in fogs. Second, it was the victory of United Earth, after 4 days of battle United Earth 12th Space Marines Regiment managed to take control of the entire planet and sent a shuttle for delivering a battle report.
Aftermath
10 days after the last battle (day 365), the military leaders of two sides met in the Roundtable Summit in the colony of New London.
The Armistice of Hoxton was signed, with the following details:
- Armistice: Military actions must not be taken inside territories of the United Earth and LIS for the upcoming 100 years.
- Border Regulations: Border lines between United Earth and LIS, named Hoxton Line, are maintained. No space vessels should cross the line, both sides have the right to shoot down any vessels that crossed the line, unless the vessel has authorised access.
- Embargo: Trades and shipments to and from LIS are forbidden. United Earth will enforce a blockade fleet along the Hoxton Line.
- Colonization restriction: LIS must not carry out colonization near or along the Hoxton Line.
- Trade Route Protection: Any LIS vessels with armaments equal to or more than corvettes will be regarded as violating United Earth trade routes.
- Violation of any of these regulations will be regarded as breaking the treaty.
- Any forms of independence by LIS will not be recognized and accepted by the United Earth General Assembly.
Eventually nobody achieved total victory in the Human Civil War, however, LIS actually ‘won’ the war. Colonies and cities occupied by LIS are no longer under the control of United Earth bureaucrats, they are freed from any forms of suppression and exploits, at least a better life can be started with ture fairness and autonomy guaranteed by the League.
Yet United Earth has also earned a ‘strategic’ victory, since they successfully defended most major regions, leaving LIS only able to have mostly barren planets of outer territories. The Armistice of Hoxton also allowed them to have limited control on the development of LIS.
The United Earth General Assembly was not satisfied with the outcome of the war - They understood that LIS had achieved their aim in the war. Now, the capabilities of the United Earth military were being questioned nationwide, even managed to repel the Alpha Draconian invasion - It shall be stopped to restore the reputation of the General Assembly. The General Assembly originally wanted to ‘retire’ Marshal Bradley to pacify the doubts of people, but changed their mind after reconsidering his achievements repelling an alien Invasion and read about his big military project to retake territories occupied by LIS, which the plan actually helped people put a larger confidence onto the military than before.
Speaking of the support, a tragedy for the Overlord of Alpha Draconians. The Overlord tried to cover up the failures of his expedition plans, however, the Inner Circle intercepted the intel. The scandal was soon delivered to all members of core Reptilian society, they now lost all confidence in the ‘weak’ Overlord that had completely ruined their national pride. Several days later, the Overlord was assassinated in a coup planned by the Inner Circle.
The seat of ultimate power was empty, but that is not a seat for many. A more intense, almost endless political rivalry took place between the Lords of Inner Circles beginning right after the death of Overlord, leading the entire empire into a state of political instability. Without a stable and powerful leader to rule the vast empire, the corruption in administration of Alpha Draconians is getting ten times more serious than before. Social order also began to collapse, leading to the disparity between the nobles and common civilians, and social unrests.
The instability of Alpha Draconians, and one more defeat for their seemed invincible military, gave confidence to the conspiracists hidden all over the empire. Some puppet regions began attempting to break away from Alpha Draconians. Though not all of them had been successful, more new powers have risen - Especially the New Galactic Empire, thirsted for galactic domination, is slowly overtaking the influence of Alpha Draconians in the shadows.
The Zolarg Empire finally found themselves a powerful ally to support each other against Alpha Draconian influence - Humans’ capability defending themselves against Alpha Draconian forces impressed not only the Insectoids of every hive, the Emperor is also glad to see this. A few months after the end of the Human Civil War, Zolarg Empire signed diplomatic memorandums with both LIS and United Earth, on the basis of cooperation during the invasion, to begin official peaceful interaction between Insectoids and Humans.
Zolarg forces returned from human territory also brought back some human technologies along with them. The inspiring foreign knowledge have stimulated further development of the Zolarg Empire in terms of economy, science, society and military, and indirectly led to an innovative invention of Insectoids - Mind Network.
While the human cities and colonies were rebuilding, humans also obtained interesting information from the remains of Alpha Draconian machines in Barracuda Blues. These cutting-edge machines have some linkage with the ancient aliens, which the scientists and archaeologists figured out these engines are derived from the ancient alien knowledge recorded on the artifacts scattered all around the galaxy. This discovery will bring drastic changes to human history, a new era of future technologies is predictable in the future not so far away.
Understanding they are not alone in the Galaxy, United Earth begin recognizing the importance of galactic diplomacy, in order to protect themselves (from Alpha Draconians that might return someday in a larger war), as well as seeking for new opportunities. they begin establishing contacts between alien civilizations as they colonize new planets, not just the major civilization like the Zolarg Empire, but also more minor ones.
The Milky Way Galaxy had changed a lot - although there had been wars, costing thousands of lives. Does the war worth anything in the end? Nobody will have an ultimate conclusion, what we know is, war, is always changing our history.
THAT IS ALL!
We also hope @bastecklein can leave some comments on the story idea so far.
Today I am releasing Voxel Paint v1.5.0, which should be hitting all platforms within the coming days. There are a handful of changes in this release, so let's take a look at what is new!
Firstly, I have made some improvements to transforms/moving selected and grouped voxels, which was pretty buggy before. I mean, it's still probably a bit buggy, but it is better now!
All of the menu/toolbar items have been reorganized and rearranged to better fit in with recent changes to the Web App Core host. Menu item icons have been changed as well. The help menu also now contains in-app links to the Keyboard Shortcuts guide and a download link for the three.js Loader for .vpp files (which is used by games such as My Empire and My Colony 2 to load .vpp files into usable models for 3d scenes using three.js).
There is a new Insert menu that allows you to embed objects into your current painting. More objects will be coming soon, I was really wanting to test this out with today's release. The two items thus far are 'VPP Model' and 'Sphere.' VPP Model option lets you combine an existing VPP file into your current project. The imported data will be assigned as a single group which you can move and place as needed. The Sphere option will let you create a 3d voxel sphere with the specified radius and place it in your drawing. The sphere will take on whichever color is currently selected.
Speaking of the color selector, it has new options now. If you right-click on the color picker tool (long press on mobile), you will have options to add the current color to your favorites (or remove if it's already in favorites), or to change the currently grouped voxels into the selected color (if you have multiple voxels selected). This differs from the flood fill tool, as it will recolor all selected voxels, not just those of a similar color.
There is going to be another update to the app next month some time that will add more shape import options. I will also be adding an "Illuminated Voxel" option which will only really pertain to the upcoming My Colony 2 and the upcoming Voxel Playground applications. This will make a voxel unaffected by world lighting conditions, but since Voxel Paint does not currently include any special rendering effects itself, it will only be a useful function if you are making models for the above mentioned applications.
Speaking of Voxel Playground , it is a new web app I am working on to replace the previous VPP Loader Test application, which was never meant to be released to begin with, and was more or less a simple test bed to get the graphics rendering working correctly for My Empire.
Voxel Playground is not much more than VPP Loader Test at the moment, but all future development is going to be going into Voxel Playground, and VPP Loader Test will be discontinued soon, so if you were using VPP Loader Test, then please update your links:
https://www.apewebapps.com/voxel-playground/beta/
When I get the time to work on it, Voxel Playground is going to be a pretty cool application for making voxel artwork. It is going to let you fully customize your scenes, auto-generate terrain to your own specifications (or just have a flat plane), specify your own sky and lighting parameters, add your own lights, set animation frames, and more. I was actually going to be building it up so that I can use it to render a nice intro video for My Colony 2, so there is absolutely a lot of neat things coming soon to Voxel Playground, so keep an eye on it.
Anyway, that is all for this update. I know Voxel Paint hadn't been updated since July, but now that I am getting full swing into My Colony 2 development, Voxel Paint is going to need more regular updates to keep up with the requirements of the new game, so keep the suggestions and bug reports coming, and stay tuned for more!
Firstly, I have made some improvements to transforms/moving selected and grouped voxels, which was pretty buggy before. I mean, it's still probably a bit buggy, but it is better now!
All of the menu/toolbar items have been reorganized and rearranged to better fit in with recent changes to the Web App Core host. Menu item icons have been changed as well. The help menu also now contains in-app links to the Keyboard Shortcuts guide and a download link for the three.js Loader for .vpp files (which is used by games such as My Empire and My Colony 2 to load .vpp files into usable models for 3d scenes using three.js).
There is a new Insert menu that allows you to embed objects into your current painting. More objects will be coming soon, I was really wanting to test this out with today's release. The two items thus far are 'VPP Model' and 'Sphere.' VPP Model option lets you combine an existing VPP file into your current project. The imported data will be assigned as a single group which you can move and place as needed. The Sphere option will let you create a 3d voxel sphere with the specified radius and place it in your drawing. The sphere will take on whichever color is currently selected.
Speaking of the color selector, it has new options now. If you right-click on the color picker tool (long press on mobile), you will have options to add the current color to your favorites (or remove if it's already in favorites), or to change the currently grouped voxels into the selected color (if you have multiple voxels selected). This differs from the flood fill tool, as it will recolor all selected voxels, not just those of a similar color.
There is going to be another update to the app next month some time that will add more shape import options. I will also be adding an "Illuminated Voxel" option which will only really pertain to the upcoming My Colony 2 and the upcoming Voxel Playground applications. This will make a voxel unaffected by world lighting conditions, but since Voxel Paint does not currently include any special rendering effects itself, it will only be a useful function if you are making models for the above mentioned applications.
Speaking of Voxel Playground , it is a new web app I am working on to replace the previous VPP Loader Test application, which was never meant to be released to begin with, and was more or less a simple test bed to get the graphics rendering working correctly for My Empire.
Voxel Playground is not much more than VPP Loader Test at the moment, but all future development is going to be going into Voxel Playground, and VPP Loader Test will be discontinued soon, so if you were using VPP Loader Test, then please update your links:
https://www.apewebapps.com/voxel-playground/beta/
When I get the time to work on it, Voxel Playground is going to be a pretty cool application for making voxel artwork. It is going to let you fully customize your scenes, auto-generate terrain to your own specifications (or just have a flat plane), specify your own sky and lighting parameters, add your own lights, set animation frames, and more. I was actually going to be building it up so that I can use it to render a nice intro video for My Colony 2, so there is absolutely a lot of neat things coming soon to Voxel Playground, so keep an eye on it.
Anyway, that is all for this update. I know Voxel Paint hadn't been updated since July, but now that I am getting full swing into My Colony 2 development, Voxel Paint is going to need more regular updates to keep up with the requirements of the new game, so keep the suggestions and bug reports coming, and stay tuned for more!
Today I am publishing the v0.13.0 update to My Colony 2, which should be hitting all devices over the coming days! This is another big content release as MC2 starts making its way into the hands of more players, who are going to need a lot more content to play around with. So without further delay, let's start taking a look at what is new with this update!
I have also increased the abundance and availability of Gold, which was a little too rare in previous releases. And to go along with the new resources (and also add a little more flare to the various worlds), 5 new biomes and 4 new terrain objects have been added to the game as well.
Pictured above next to the Checkered Pavement is the new Internet Relay Booth, which is a beginning game entertainment and education combo structure. And on the subject of early game structures, we also say hello to the Small Security Station, providing the first way to build up your settlement security rating.
In the last update, Rum was added to the game. We now have the Rum Cellar for storing it.
Pictured in the bottom-left below, and to go with the new Software resource, the Small Server Building and the Small Software Studio are now available to build, and the Bandwidth utility has also been added to the game.
You can also see the Small Statue pictured above. In addition to the statue, the Commemorative Plaque is back, which will let you label areas of the map for all to see.
Finally, the Bank is back, faithfully generating Money and Civics for your settlement, and is the first structure to actually cost Money and Civics for construction. And to help bolster your research output, the Research Facility has been added to the game, using a model provided by the great @GeneralWadaling .
In addition, I was planning on adding a little conformation box when you are selling a building, since it is too easy to accidentally sell right now, but I forgot that as well. Oops again.
And finally, you were supposed to be able to assign text to the Commemorative Plaque, and I forgot to add that part! Well, it will be there next time!
And at some point in the not-too-distant future, I am going to implement a suggestion by @Sobeirannovaocc and release a node based command-line My Colony 2 dedicated server, which you would be able to host on pretty much any device, even on a 24/7 cloud server. So stay tuned for more info on that.
Anyway, that is it for this release! I hope you enjoy it. Keep the feedback, suggestions, and bug reports coming, and stay tuned for more MC2 in the coming weeks!
#mycolony2
New Resources
Three new resources have been included with this update, which are Software, Aluminum, and Uranium. To go along with the two latter resources, Aluminum and Uranium deposits have also been added to all worlds (the Uranium is also glow in the dark, for extra fun).I have also increased the abundance and availability of Gold, which was a little too rare in previous releases. And to go along with the new resources (and also add a little more flare to the various worlds), 5 new biomes and 4 new terrain objects have been added to the game as well.
New Units
With new resources, we're going to need new units, right? The hardy Aluminum Miner is back in the game, and can be built at the Construction Yard. Aluminum can be deposited at the Raw Materials Depot. I do not plan on adding the MC1 Aluminum Refinery to the game, as it was basically a useless structure.New Structures
Of course, the corner stone of any update are the new structures, and there are a handful in this release. To start, there are several new types of pavement in the game, the Hardened Pavement and Checkered Pavements have been added to the game, as well as Artificial Grass from Cosmic Turf, Inc., for when your fancy Golden Shelter residents just need to have a yard to see out their window.Pictured above next to the Checkered Pavement is the new Internet Relay Booth, which is a beginning game entertainment and education combo structure. And on the subject of early game structures, we also say hello to the Small Security Station, providing the first way to build up your settlement security rating.
In the last update, Rum was added to the game. We now have the Rum Cellar for storing it.
Pictured in the bottom-left below, and to go with the new Software resource, the Small Server Building and the Small Software Studio are now available to build, and the Bandwidth utility has also been added to the game.
You can also see the Small Statue pictured above. In addition to the statue, the Commemorative Plaque is back, which will let you label areas of the map for all to see.
Finally, the Bank is back, faithfully generating Money and Civics for your settlement, and is the first structure to actually cost Money and Civics for construction. And to help bolster your research output, the Research Facility has been added to the game, using a model provided by the great @GeneralWadaling .
New Research
With an influx of new structures, we're going to need some new research to go along with them. Three new techs were added in this update (all brought over from MC1), which are Basic Networking Infrastructure, Basic Education, and Advanced Chemistry.Things I Forgot to Add 😕
In addition to what was added, there are a few items that were on my list that I forgot to add before submitting the build to Google Play, so they will probably be on deck for v0.14.0. On the New Game window, I was going to add a button to import a backup save file, since right now you can backup your game, but never import it again. So that was a big oops on my part.In addition, I was planning on adding a little conformation box when you are selling a building, since it is too easy to accidentally sell right now, but I forgot that as well. Oops again.
And finally, you were supposed to be able to assign text to the Commemorative Plaque, and I forgot to add that part! Well, it will be there next time!
Coming Soon
Going forward, v0.14.0 is going to be yet another big content update. I plan on adding the beginning Uranium stack, including a miner, storage, and maybe a nuclear power plant (and if anybody wants to create a model of a Nuclear Plant, I wouldn't complain). I also want to start adding water based units and structures for the water world as well. And finally, My Colony 2 v0.14.0 will also be coming to the Windows Store, which should bring even more players and feedback into the game.And at some point in the not-too-distant future, I am going to implement a suggestion by @Sobeirannovaocc and release a node based command-line My Colony 2 dedicated server, which you would be able to host on pretty much any device, even on a 24/7 cloud server. So stay tuned for more info on that.
Anyway, that is it for this release! I hope you enjoy it. Keep the feedback, suggestions, and bug reports coming, and stay tuned for more MC2 in the coming weeks!
#mycolony2
I built two regolith compactors that I didn't have enough resources for, so the spots I was going to build in just changed to the model where they look like they're taped off construction sites, but the builder bot didn't move (as I assume is supposed to happen, no problems there).
Problem is, when I finally did get enough resources, the buildings still didn't get built. I tried moving my pov to a different part of the planet (moon) some distance from my settlement and back again(manually, not with bookmarks). Then the buildings were built, but wouldn't produce ore even though I had enough energy and regolith for them. I saved, quit, closed, and reopened the game but they still weren't producing (every other building, including other compactors, was fine) so I sold them and built three more (one each standing where they had been, and one in between) but now I have the first problem of the builder not building them.
In a previous playthrough I had this problem with various types of building, regardless of where I built them, as long as I had previously tried to build one of that type before I could afford it. I even tried building on the "construction sites" again, with both the same and different types of buildings. After moving my pov to a great distance from the settlement and back the buildings would be built, and by the time I quit playing that world (after leaving it idle for a while) I remember I sold most of my buildings, and found that those which I had tried to build on top of each others "construction sites" had as many as three or four buildings of the same and different types on the same square, all of them producing resources (by now) as they should.
Problem is, when I finally did get enough resources, the buildings still didn't get built. I tried moving my pov to a different part of the planet (moon) some distance from my settlement and back again(manually, not with bookmarks). Then the buildings were built, but wouldn't produce ore even though I had enough energy and regolith for them. I saved, quit, closed, and reopened the game but they still weren't producing (every other building, including other compactors, was fine) so I sold them and built three more (one each standing where they had been, and one in between) but now I have the first problem of the builder not building them.
In a previous playthrough I had this problem with various types of building, regardless of where I built them, as long as I had previously tried to build one of that type before I could afford it. I even tried building on the "construction sites" again, with both the same and different types of buildings. After moving my pov to a great distance from the settlement and back the buildings would be built, and by the time I quit playing that world (after leaving it idle for a while) I remember I sold most of my buildings, and found that those which I had tried to build on top of each others "construction sites" had as many as three or four buildings of the same and different types on the same square, all of them producing resources (by now) as they should.
Today I am publishing a long awaited update to the original My Colony, v1.20.0, which is live now on Ape Web Apps and the Ape Apps Launcher, and should be hitting everywhere else sometime next week (might have delayed app reviews due to labor day weekend). People have been asking for fixes and content, so it's time to give MC1 some love, so let's take a look at what is new, as well as what's to come!
First off, one of the longest awaited bug fixes is here in this release, regarding colony health statistics. There was a bug in MC1 where, if your colony ever ran out of food or water, it would completely bork the health reporting stats, even after food and water was restored. This has been corrected, and health stat reporting should be back to normal. If yours was borked, it might take up to ten minutes in-game for the issue to correct itself.
There was a request by @josip0101v to overhaul the building color codes in the "Building Colors Only" view mode, and this has now been done. I don't remember the new color coding off the top of my head, but its something like Yellow for resource production, Green for residential, blue and purple are in there too. I think they correspond to the graph colors when you click on a building. Anyway, it's better than showing everything in Red.
If you are one of those people who hate kids, then you are in luck because the long broken Deport Children function has been fixed. Deporting children will remove all kids 10 years of age and younger. The cutoff is 10, because MC1 considers kids over 10 to be working age, and they are available to work in the labor market.
There have been several issues raised related to inappropriate language and behavior in the in-game chat, so some basic automatic chat moderation has been added. These changes only apply to the green letter chat that shows up in the game window, and the slide-out chat sidebar will still show everything, for those who do not want moderation.
The game will filter out a variety of common profanity words. By filter them out, I mean if a message contains one, the message just wont show up in the game at all (it will still be in the chat sidebar though).
The chat overlay will now no longer show messages over 400 characters long. There have been complaints about people either typing a bunch of nonsense or just copy/pasting stuff into chat. This will no longer show up.
There have also been complaints about non-stop spam posting. The game will now no longer allow more than three messages from a user within a 10 (I think 10) second time span. This should be well enough time to allow for normal conversation to go uniterrupted.
Again, none of this moderation happens in the slideout chat, it's mainly to keep things from showing up for people who are just trying to play the game.
By request from @Shadowdoom286 , more information has been added to the popup window when you mouse-over the population of your colony. It will now show the number of children, the number of working age adults, and the number of retired people.
Moving on. The Quantum Warehouse and the Gravity Compression Warehouse now have storage for Cobalt. Cobalt will now also be generated by the Research Converter.
I have included three new buildings in this update that were submitted by the community. The new Nuclear Water Synthesis Plant (submitted by @itsLiseczeq ) is a great new structure for water generation (mid game, but its probably one of the best structures for late game as well). The Department of Paradoxical Studies and Nanite Server Building (submitted by @Electrogamer1943 ) have also been added. The Department of Paradoxical Studies is roughly the LIS version of the Department of Fish Mating Studies, and the Nanite Server Building is an upgrade to the Large Server Building, providing more bandwidth, but costing nanites and cobalt.
Next, I decided people might want me to start adding more late game content, and so I am starting down a new tech path which I will expand on over the coming updates. The new Advanced Simulation Theory research has been added to the game, which unlocks the new Advanced Simulations Unlimited structure, which is an OP generator for money, research and civics but costs huge amounts of power and bandwidth, and really chews through the nanites.
Moving forward, I think the game needs (at a minimum) better production facilities for Software, Nanites, and Bricks, so you can expect those in the coming update. I am also open to continued community submissions, so keep them coming and I will keep adding them. While I have been focused on MC2, there seems to be a larger desire for me to keep adding content to MC1, so I might as well, so stay tuned for more content to both games as the weeks progress!
So that's it for today, check out the update on the web now, idk when it will hit other platforms but it should be this coming week (maybe longer for Android). Enjoy!
#mycolony
First off, one of the longest awaited bug fixes is here in this release, regarding colony health statistics. There was a bug in MC1 where, if your colony ever ran out of food or water, it would completely bork the health reporting stats, even after food and water was restored. This has been corrected, and health stat reporting should be back to normal. If yours was borked, it might take up to ten minutes in-game for the issue to correct itself.
There was a request by @josip0101v to overhaul the building color codes in the "Building Colors Only" view mode, and this has now been done. I don't remember the new color coding off the top of my head, but its something like Yellow for resource production, Green for residential, blue and purple are in there too. I think they correspond to the graph colors when you click on a building. Anyway, it's better than showing everything in Red.
If you are one of those people who hate kids, then you are in luck because the long broken Deport Children function has been fixed. Deporting children will remove all kids 10 years of age and younger. The cutoff is 10, because MC1 considers kids over 10 to be working age, and they are available to work in the labor market.
There have been several issues raised related to inappropriate language and behavior in the in-game chat, so some basic automatic chat moderation has been added. These changes only apply to the green letter chat that shows up in the game window, and the slide-out chat sidebar will still show everything, for those who do not want moderation.
The game will filter out a variety of common profanity words. By filter them out, I mean if a message contains one, the message just wont show up in the game at all (it will still be in the chat sidebar though).
The chat overlay will now no longer show messages over 400 characters long. There have been complaints about people either typing a bunch of nonsense or just copy/pasting stuff into chat. This will no longer show up.
There have also been complaints about non-stop spam posting. The game will now no longer allow more than three messages from a user within a 10 (I think 10) second time span. This should be well enough time to allow for normal conversation to go uniterrupted.
Again, none of this moderation happens in the slideout chat, it's mainly to keep things from showing up for people who are just trying to play the game.
By request from @Shadowdoom286 , more information has been added to the popup window when you mouse-over the population of your colony. It will now show the number of children, the number of working age adults, and the number of retired people.
Moving on. The Quantum Warehouse and the Gravity Compression Warehouse now have storage for Cobalt. Cobalt will now also be generated by the Research Converter.
I have included three new buildings in this update that were submitted by the community. The new Nuclear Water Synthesis Plant (submitted by @itsLiseczeq ) is a great new structure for water generation (mid game, but its probably one of the best structures for late game as well). The Department of Paradoxical Studies and Nanite Server Building (submitted by @Electrogamer1943 ) have also been added. The Department of Paradoxical Studies is roughly the LIS version of the Department of Fish Mating Studies, and the Nanite Server Building is an upgrade to the Large Server Building, providing more bandwidth, but costing nanites and cobalt.
Next, I decided people might want me to start adding more late game content, and so I am starting down a new tech path which I will expand on over the coming updates. The new Advanced Simulation Theory research has been added to the game, which unlocks the new Advanced Simulations Unlimited structure, which is an OP generator for money, research and civics but costs huge amounts of power and bandwidth, and really chews through the nanites.
Moving forward, I think the game needs (at a minimum) better production facilities for Software, Nanites, and Bricks, so you can expect those in the coming update. I am also open to continued community submissions, so keep them coming and I will keep adding them. While I have been focused on MC2, there seems to be a larger desire for me to keep adding content to MC1, so I might as well, so stay tuned for more content to both games as the weeks progress!
So that's it for today, check out the update on the web now, idk when it will hit other platforms but it should be this coming week (maybe longer for Android). Enjoy!
#mycolony
wolcaom to ashitboys big hot pot of buding ideas.
part 1 the lost tech teir buidngs still left in the game code in limbo.
i hope you game devs can sue thise ideas to help amke my clonony a much more imersive and fun game.
so anyway so theres alot of thoer theing most perole who play my colnoy with even the devs them selfs forgeting there own list of thing to do. one of the main ones is that alot of the my colnoy games alein, teastenden and nanao tech budings to even in the deaths of the ape apps devs mind ahve been lost to time for the less obvervent. but i have mdae a discovery by just prue exctend forom some rescuminu prewew alaonys that theres alot of hiden unfished budings of those tiers still haves some assents still lernnig in lmibo waiting for the dev to fully give them form.
so the fist post will beabout those lost to time buding of those tech unlocks.
so in the games mid to end game rescre theres three main know tier resce catgorys i will be suing the human tree as a baseline for easy to under standinf for beginer fest time plaeyrs that play humans first.
thise three main catrgys of tech buidng goes and follows in tech theirs.
these are alein, trascendant and then nano.
now with that out of the way heres the meaty part hidden in limbo of the games code thers acatly alot of prodctuin resorch bulding for almost very resrocg prodction buidng that actly organl we ment to have acatly suabe tech teir versions of thsoe resorch budings from bandwith to even thing like textiles and oil like most of the ealry to late game raw and mfacture resorc prodcution builng shold have a alein,trasnednt and nano buildng.
good good excample of this is a somhing that just been added my pure chasce is the nano their bandwith server buldn. but how ever somehow the alein and trasendet tech version of the large beaenwith server are sill MIA.
so bascly how this bascly idea is the devs shuold fist looks at all the data fiels of any assest left for very prodction buidng for every resroce and make a alein, trasnedant and anao techier of thsoe buldings
thers alot of them;
oil,cloth,beandwith,recyceling,microchip.. you get the idea like any ealy to mid game raw and manfartuing resoce that are bascly not alein artcafts, alein relcis and anchtin instrcuions, nantes and starships bascly. that are bascly fonud on most planets bascly.
ther are also servasce proveing buldings like for example hosptols,colages,and some toerhs that don't have there evelant of alein trasanend and anaotech for exapmle we got transesdt and anao tech clnics... but not large hostols, alein hospitols,trassendcat hosptols, and nanotech hosptols even if thers still have barly soem of there assets still lergeing in the code, so bascly the main ieda here that ther like 90% of ufnished alein ,trasent and nanao tetch resorce prodction and servasce buidngs still bascly forgoten.
so bascly this ieda is the devs make a chart of all the cruent resorce prodction and servace bduing allready in the game with those budings on the vertcal side and then put the carnet resorce and witch tpye of servcse catrgoy kind of the bduings of tech tier of large,alein trastedant, and nanaotech thats not alein atrtfacts,acent instecuinos,alein relcis,natates,adn starships, in the resoce cartgoy. and not the tpye s ofservace buldings that are clniics, 1x1 edactnol beuings(bascly 4x4 or usviersty sized), or bascly things that already exest in the horzontal top part of the chart.
then make the cart in a grid pattern and wrok on the gaps that aer and arne not in the game and the noes that are not in the game but shuold be evia comaun sense and decation in the next few updates finsh prograing them in there are lot of them (bascly 90% of them) with grathics assests still in the game hident deap in the code.
the ide here is the dev shuold try to add them has the idea here.
so this is what part 1 is devs add still unfiehsed but alleady bascly grathcly ready budlngs of aelin, teasnetd and anao tech that are still aprcaly has gracthcal assest in the game code ready but not yet fully coded on the gameplay and just code the in fully. this is like 90% of the lost tech missing alein treasented and nano tech bduings that wher ment to be in the game but wher forgoten from time to be fully receverd and fished as organly ment for the dev wanted to before otehr real lfie things casued him to forget them.
this is the end of ashtiboys big hot pot of building ideas part 1. sorry if its a bit long but this was a big massvle part of the game baslcy missing that had so much in it i codultn make it any. samlry of a topic.
in part two we try to make acatl new ideas of about new gronud of budibg ideas that are not just unfished game buidlng like new knids of trash rescyeing into otehr resocres liek pwoer or nanates or very new unigue tiwst more otehr games witch concepts will blow your mind.
part 1 the lost tech teir buidngs still left in the game code in limbo.
i hope you game devs can sue thise ideas to help amke my clonony a much more imersive and fun game.
so anyway so theres alot of thoer theing most perole who play my colnoy with even the devs them selfs forgeting there own list of thing to do. one of the main ones is that alot of the my colnoy games alein, teastenden and nanao tech budings to even in the deaths of the ape apps devs mind ahve been lost to time for the less obvervent. but i have mdae a discovery by just prue exctend forom some rescuminu prewew alaonys that theres alot of hiden unfished budings of those tiers still haves some assents still lernnig in lmibo waiting for the dev to fully give them form.
so the fist post will beabout those lost to time buding of those tech unlocks.
so in the games mid to end game rescre theres three main know tier resce catgorys i will be suing the human tree as a baseline for easy to under standinf for beginer fest time plaeyrs that play humans first.
thise three main catrgys of tech buidng goes and follows in tech theirs.
these are alein, trascendant and then nano.
now with that out of the way heres the meaty part hidden in limbo of the games code thers acatly alot of prodctuin resorch bulding for almost very resrocg prodction buidng that actly organl we ment to have acatly suabe tech teir versions of thsoe resorch budings from bandwith to even thing like textiles and oil like most of the ealry to late game raw and mfacture resorc prodcution builng shold have a alein,trasnednt and nano buildng.
good good excample of this is a somhing that just been added my pure chasce is the nano their bandwith server buldn. but how ever somehow the alein and trasendet tech version of the large beaenwith server are sill MIA.
so bascly how this bascly idea is the devs shuold fist looks at all the data fiels of any assest left for very prodction buidng for every resroce and make a alein, trasnedant and anao techier of thsoe buldings
thers alot of them;
oil,cloth,beandwith,recyceling,microchip.. you get the idea like any ealy to mid game raw and manfartuing resoce that are bascly not alein artcafts, alein relcis and anchtin instrcuions, nantes and starships bascly. that are bascly fonud on most planets bascly.
ther are also servasce proveing buldings like for example hosptols,colages,and some toerhs that don't have there evelant of alein trasanend and anaotech for exapmle we got transesdt and anao tech clnics... but not large hostols, alein hospitols,trassendcat hosptols, and nanotech hosptols even if thers still have barly soem of there assets still lergeing in the code, so bascly the main ieda here that ther like 90% of ufnished alein ,trasent and nanao tetch resorce prodction and servasce buidngs still bascly forgoten.
so bascly this ieda is the devs make a chart of all the cruent resorce prodction and servace bduing allready in the game with those budings on the vertcal side and then put the carnet resorce and witch tpye of servcse catrgoy kind of the bduings of tech tier of large,alein trastedant, and nanaotech thats not alein atrtfacts,acent instecuinos,alein relcis,natates,adn starships, in the resoce cartgoy. and not the tpye s ofservace buldings that are clniics, 1x1 edactnol beuings(bascly 4x4 or usviersty sized), or bascly things that already exest in the horzontal top part of the chart.
then make the cart in a grid pattern and wrok on the gaps that aer and arne not in the game and the noes that are not in the game but shuold be evia comaun sense and decation in the next few updates finsh prograing them in there are lot of them (bascly 90% of them) with grathics assests still in the game hident deap in the code.
the ide here is the dev shuold try to add them has the idea here.
so this is what part 1 is devs add still unfiehsed but alleady bascly grathcly ready budlngs of aelin, teasnetd and anao tech that are still aprcaly has gracthcal assest in the game code ready but not yet fully coded on the gameplay and just code the in fully. this is like 90% of the lost tech missing alein treasented and nano tech bduings that wher ment to be in the game but wher forgoten from time to be fully receverd and fished as organly ment for the dev wanted to before otehr real lfie things casued him to forget them.
this is the end of ashtiboys big hot pot of building ideas part 1. sorry if its a bit long but this was a big massvle part of the game baslcy missing that had so much in it i codultn make it any. samlry of a topic.
in part two we try to make acatl new ideas of about new gronud of budibg ideas that are not just unfished game buidlng like new knids of trash rescyeing into otehr resocres liek pwoer or nanates or very new unigue tiwst more otehr games witch concepts will blow your mind.
I know that many are anxiously waiting the next updates to My Colony 1 and 2, so since they are still a little ways off, I thought I would share with everyone what their current status is, and what my plans are going forward!
First, the reason for the lack of updates this month is that I have created a new Google Play account called My Colony Universe to house all of the games in (you guessed it) the My Colony Universe, so that everything is combined together and easy for players to find. Since the titles were spread out across three different accounts, it took me some time to get everything transferred over, as each transfer request takes several days and must (I assume) be done manually by employees at Google.
Going forward though, all My Colony related content on Android is available on the same Google Play account which you can view here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=6753488031908307666
While I was waiting for the transfers though, I started the process of going back and updating my entire catalogue of apps and games so that they all target the latest versions of Android/iOS/Windows and run the latest SDK's and so on. This has been a slow-ish process, and I expect it to take me most of the rest of the month, but it is important work to do, since the My Colony games themselves do not generate all that much revenue, and are largely subsidized by the rest of my catalogue of apps and games. For that reason, it is important to keep the other titles up to date and functioning properly on the latest mobile hardware, and since some of my apps I had not touched in several years, time was well overdue to go through and complete this process.
Next, let's look at the future plans for the original My Colony. I do not know if it will be ready for the next update or not (really depends on GirlyGamerGazell's timeline), but the next big content update to the game will be the completion of the Dark Matter update. This will probably be the last really big content update that MC1 receives, other than a regular stream of weekly premium structures. I really want to focus my time for new content and features into My Colony 2 which has really begun to mature over the last few updates, so that is what I will be doing. Rest assured though, MC1 will continue to receive updates on a regular basis to fix things that need fixed and to stay current for the latest devices and whatnot.
I am also going to be making a change to the Challenges system, as it turns out that it is a lot of work for me to keep coming up with new challenges on a daily basis. Instead, every day the MC server is going to automatically generate a new daily challenge using a random resource, this way I do not have to keep coming up with challenges and logos manually. In addition, randomly throughout the day, the server may generate a 1-2 hour long "snap challenge," which I think should give more players a chance to gain trophies.
As the challenge system goes on, it may make sense to implement something like "seasons" where all trophies reset after a time. There can be a record of course of which players/federations won each season. But at some point it might get to where first place is so far ahead on trophies that nobody can even catch up.
Anyway, you guys can let me know what you think of the system. Remember that challenges are completely optional, and while some people have expressed disdain for the system, many others seem to really like it, so it will be staying around for sure, and might even come to MC2 as well.
Now on to My Colony 2, which is going to have a big year in 2023. A lot of new features/fixes/and mechanics have come to MC2 over the last few updates, bringing it closer to being on par with the original. That is going to continue, and it will eventually far surpass MC1 in terms of "stuff to do."
First, I have done some work behind the scenes over the last couple of weeks on the server side of things, mostly aimed at improving MC2 dedicated servers. I noticed that when running an MC2 dedicated server for several days, what would happen is that the user's account token would expire, and then all game saves to Cloud Sync would fail due to an expired token. Thus the next time the server was rebooted, several days of game data would be lost. This issue should now be fixed on the web app version of My Colony 2, so it now should be safe to run an MC2 dedicated server using the web browser for days on end with Cloud Sync enabled. I currently have three servers running at my house to put this theory to the test.
To further help with dedicated servers, I am going to be adding an automatic daily backup for all public dedicated server games directly to the My Colony 2 server (which is on different hardware than the Cloud Sync server) which server owners will be able to restore from in the event of a catastrophe. Perhaps I will retain the last several days worth of backups that an owner can restore from.
Since I noticed there has been a lot more MC2 dedicated server activity lately, I wanted to make sure that this system is as solid as I can make it, so more improvements will be coming to it as time goes on.
In terms of new content, the next MC2 update will be fairly large, as I am pleased to report there have been quite a few new model submissions on the Discord server and elsewhere, so there is a lot of exciting content coming soon to MC2.
I am also going to be making a way for people to submit the link to their custom News Feed servers, so that the game will come standard with several that players can choose from.
I would like to also finally release MC2 to Steam in 2023, which I know is something some people have been asking/waiting for. Before it gets there, I want the game to have sound effects and a music track. I have already compiled a few original tunes for the game using Garageband, but I am no musical expert, so if anyone out there wants to take a stab at creating some songs for MC2, please feel free to do so!
Big things are going to be coming to the Player mode in My Colony 2 (the mode where you become a little colonist and walk around). I sort of have a vision in my mind where MC2 is kind of two types of games in one, the city builder type game that it already is, and something of an adventure/role playing game using the Player mode, except that the universe you play in consists of the network of online dedicated servers built by other players. I am thinking that the Star Gate from MC1 needs to return, but this time it will act as a means for players to travel from planet to planet in player mode in order to adventure, complete quests/missions, find items, or just explore other worlds from that perspective. I have spent some time just walking around some MC2 worlds in the VR mode, and it is pretty cool, but would be far more so if there was actually something to do besides just look.
Basically, each player/account is going to have one player mode avatar on the entire universe server, instead of a different guy for each world. You will have a "home" planet that you can respawn on if you die or if the server you are currently on goes offline. You will have stats/inventory and be able to party up/communicate with other players. You will be able to visit other worlds via Star Gates, even if you do not have a settlement on that world. When you are in building mode, you will be able to see Player Mode people as they come through your star gate, and so really you can build some kind of special welcoming area/lobby in your world around your Star Gate. Maybe buildings will be added that you can build that have specific functions for player mode. The game will also generate some NPC type characters in each settlement that players can interact with or get quests from. You will be able to do some sort of prospecting/mining, and maybe each world will have unique materials that you can only obtain in player mode. There are a lot of options.
Player Mode characters will also be able to control vehicles, whether driving/air/water vehicles, as well as combat type vehicles. There are a lot of options. Players will also be able to fight each other if they choose to do so.
So that is sort of my idea for the "two games in one" approach to MC2. Although the classic My Colony style of play will always be the primary mode, I think realtime multiplayer and dedicated server model that MC2 has unlocks the ability to add the cool secondary mode that can potentially add replay value to the game for years to come, and also open the world up to players who maybe don't care about the building aspect of the game, but would have fun adventuring through worlds that others have built up.
So those are the 2023 plans for MC2. Content and feature wise, I want it to be close to on par with MC1 United Earth faction, with the added bonus of infinite world sizes, real time online multiplayer, and a network of worlds that are truly connected. On top of that, I want to start adding a secondary adventure game to the mix that players can interact and explore in, whether on a PC, touch screen, TV/gamepad, or in VR. Finally, I want the polish and presentation to get to a point where the game is ready for Steam. I think all of these updates will add up to some exciting times ahead for MC2!
Just as an aside, I also plan to keep updating Colony Wars throughout the year, I have not forgotten about that game. At some point also, Terra Nova 4X will become a thing, I just need to find the time to work on it!
#mycolony #mycolony2
First, the reason for the lack of updates this month is that I have created a new Google Play account called My Colony Universe to house all of the games in (you guessed it) the My Colony Universe, so that everything is combined together and easy for players to find. Since the titles were spread out across three different accounts, it took me some time to get everything transferred over, as each transfer request takes several days and must (I assume) be done manually by employees at Google.
Going forward though, all My Colony related content on Android is available on the same Google Play account which you can view here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=6753488031908307666
While I was waiting for the transfers though, I started the process of going back and updating my entire catalogue of apps and games so that they all target the latest versions of Android/iOS/Windows and run the latest SDK's and so on. This has been a slow-ish process, and I expect it to take me most of the rest of the month, but it is important work to do, since the My Colony games themselves do not generate all that much revenue, and are largely subsidized by the rest of my catalogue of apps and games. For that reason, it is important to keep the other titles up to date and functioning properly on the latest mobile hardware, and since some of my apps I had not touched in several years, time was well overdue to go through and complete this process.
Next, let's look at the future plans for the original My Colony. I do not know if it will be ready for the next update or not (really depends on GirlyGamerGazell's timeline), but the next big content update to the game will be the completion of the Dark Matter update. This will probably be the last really big content update that MC1 receives, other than a regular stream of weekly premium structures. I really want to focus my time for new content and features into My Colony 2 which has really begun to mature over the last few updates, so that is what I will be doing. Rest assured though, MC1 will continue to receive updates on a regular basis to fix things that need fixed and to stay current for the latest devices and whatnot.
I am also going to be making a change to the Challenges system, as it turns out that it is a lot of work for me to keep coming up with new challenges on a daily basis. Instead, every day the MC server is going to automatically generate a new daily challenge using a random resource, this way I do not have to keep coming up with challenges and logos manually. In addition, randomly throughout the day, the server may generate a 1-2 hour long "snap challenge," which I think should give more players a chance to gain trophies.
As the challenge system goes on, it may make sense to implement something like "seasons" where all trophies reset after a time. There can be a record of course of which players/federations won each season. But at some point it might get to where first place is so far ahead on trophies that nobody can even catch up.
Anyway, you guys can let me know what you think of the system. Remember that challenges are completely optional, and while some people have expressed disdain for the system, many others seem to really like it, so it will be staying around for sure, and might even come to MC2 as well.
Now on to My Colony 2, which is going to have a big year in 2023. A lot of new features/fixes/and mechanics have come to MC2 over the last few updates, bringing it closer to being on par with the original. That is going to continue, and it will eventually far surpass MC1 in terms of "stuff to do."
First, I have done some work behind the scenes over the last couple of weeks on the server side of things, mostly aimed at improving MC2 dedicated servers. I noticed that when running an MC2 dedicated server for several days, what would happen is that the user's account token would expire, and then all game saves to Cloud Sync would fail due to an expired token. Thus the next time the server was rebooted, several days of game data would be lost. This issue should now be fixed on the web app version of My Colony 2, so it now should be safe to run an MC2 dedicated server using the web browser for days on end with Cloud Sync enabled. I currently have three servers running at my house to put this theory to the test.
To further help with dedicated servers, I am going to be adding an automatic daily backup for all public dedicated server games directly to the My Colony 2 server (which is on different hardware than the Cloud Sync server) which server owners will be able to restore from in the event of a catastrophe. Perhaps I will retain the last several days worth of backups that an owner can restore from.
Since I noticed there has been a lot more MC2 dedicated server activity lately, I wanted to make sure that this system is as solid as I can make it, so more improvements will be coming to it as time goes on.
In terms of new content, the next MC2 update will be fairly large, as I am pleased to report there have been quite a few new model submissions on the Discord server and elsewhere, so there is a lot of exciting content coming soon to MC2.
I am also going to be making a way for people to submit the link to their custom News Feed servers, so that the game will come standard with several that players can choose from.
I would like to also finally release MC2 to Steam in 2023, which I know is something some people have been asking/waiting for. Before it gets there, I want the game to have sound effects and a music track. I have already compiled a few original tunes for the game using Garageband, but I am no musical expert, so if anyone out there wants to take a stab at creating some songs for MC2, please feel free to do so!
Big things are going to be coming to the Player mode in My Colony 2 (the mode where you become a little colonist and walk around). I sort of have a vision in my mind where MC2 is kind of two types of games in one, the city builder type game that it already is, and something of an adventure/role playing game using the Player mode, except that the universe you play in consists of the network of online dedicated servers built by other players. I am thinking that the Star Gate from MC1 needs to return, but this time it will act as a means for players to travel from planet to planet in player mode in order to adventure, complete quests/missions, find items, or just explore other worlds from that perspective. I have spent some time just walking around some MC2 worlds in the VR mode, and it is pretty cool, but would be far more so if there was actually something to do besides just look.
Basically, each player/account is going to have one player mode avatar on the entire universe server, instead of a different guy for each world. You will have a "home" planet that you can respawn on if you die or if the server you are currently on goes offline. You will have stats/inventory and be able to party up/communicate with other players. You will be able to visit other worlds via Star Gates, even if you do not have a settlement on that world. When you are in building mode, you will be able to see Player Mode people as they come through your star gate, and so really you can build some kind of special welcoming area/lobby in your world around your Star Gate. Maybe buildings will be added that you can build that have specific functions for player mode. The game will also generate some NPC type characters in each settlement that players can interact with or get quests from. You will be able to do some sort of prospecting/mining, and maybe each world will have unique materials that you can only obtain in player mode. There are a lot of options.
Player Mode characters will also be able to control vehicles, whether driving/air/water vehicles, as well as combat type vehicles. There are a lot of options. Players will also be able to fight each other if they choose to do so.
So that is sort of my idea for the "two games in one" approach to MC2. Although the classic My Colony style of play will always be the primary mode, I think realtime multiplayer and dedicated server model that MC2 has unlocks the ability to add the cool secondary mode that can potentially add replay value to the game for years to come, and also open the world up to players who maybe don't care about the building aspect of the game, but would have fun adventuring through worlds that others have built up.
So those are the 2023 plans for MC2. Content and feature wise, I want it to be close to on par with MC1 United Earth faction, with the added bonus of infinite world sizes, real time online multiplayer, and a network of worlds that are truly connected. On top of that, I want to start adding a secondary adventure game to the mix that players can interact and explore in, whether on a PC, touch screen, TV/gamepad, or in VR. Finally, I want the polish and presentation to get to a point where the game is ready for Steam. I think all of these updates will add up to some exciting times ahead for MC2!
Just as an aside, I also plan to keep updating Colony Wars throughout the year, I have not forgotten about that game. At some point also, Terra Nova 4X will become a thing, I just need to find the time to work on it!
#mycolony #mycolony2
I know that many players have been patiently waiting for the next My Colony 2 update, but now the way is finally over as MC2 has just been updated to v0.31.0, and along with the usual bug fixes, this update brings with it a massive new content dump! So what all is inside? Let's take a look!
If you look at the screenshot above and think that something seems a bit fishy, then you would be correct. This update adds fish as a new resource, and you will now see them swimming around in the oceans on the Water World map! Fish are technically a Terrain type object in the game engine much like Ore and Gold deposits, except this is the first terrain class that can be generated in the water. The object also rotates in a circle, to give the appearance that the fish are swimming. They will spread too, similar to synthetic crystalline (although at a slower rate). The oceans on Water World are so overflowing with fish, that I doubt anybody will ever run out.
To go along with the new fish resource are the also-new Fish Dropoff structure and the Trawler unit, which are available pretty early on in the game and made with models provided by @spamdude . The Fish Dropoff can store 2500 Fish and also converts some of it into food, but once you unlock Salt Water production, you can also build the shore based Refrigerated Fish Bins for additional Fish storage. In addition to the new content, the existing Fish Hatchery gains fish storage and slight generation.
Moving on, there was a massive dump of community submitted MC2 models on the Official Discord Server recently, with contributions coming in from @spamdude , @SPARKY0303 and @DoYouHaveAnyOats , so please take a moment to thank these three users for their contributions to the game! In the screenshot below, you can see many of the new structures.
New buildings provided by @SPARKY0303 are the Hospital, the Virtual Music Experience and the Integrated Nuclear Reactor. The Hospital was a much needed upgrade to the two infirmary structures which were increasingly unable to keep up with the medical demands of larger colonies. The Virtual Music Experience adds a new semi-early game entertainment structure for your colonists (which also generates some money) and the Integrated Nuclear Reactor is another much needed structure, providing a power boosting upgrade to the existing Small Nuclear Reactor.
In addition to the new Fish related content already mentioned, further contributions from @spamdude include the new Medium Software Studio, Advanced Drilling Platform, Integrated Warehouse, and Medium Security Station. The Medium Software Studio, Integrated Warehouse and Medium Security Station each represent new mid-game upgrades to some of the existing structures that badly needed upgrade options, with the new Integrated Warehouse in particular adding storage for many resources that the regular Warehouse did not cover.
The new Advanced Drilling Platform might just be everyone's new favorite structure. Currently the most expensive building in the game and requiring the new Ultra Deep Excavation tech, the Advanced Drilling Platform consumes Helium 3 (as well as a fair amount of Power, Water and Bandwidth) while producing Ore, Regolith, Gold, Aluminum, Oil, Salt Water, the new Clay resource, and even a few Alien Artifacts! Clearly you are going to need to get your hands on some Helium 3 in order to operate this thing, but you can either find it in the Galactic Board of Trade, or the new Integrated Nuclear Reactor also produces enough Helium 3 to operate one Advanced Drilling Platform. I have also added a new Helium 3 Tank to the game, since it is clear that more He3 storage will be needed going forward.
From @DoYouHaveAnyOats we have three new structures, the Elementary School, High School and the nonsense Fish 'R Us building.
The two school models to me looked like they required an Atmospheric environment, so they are only available on worlds which would have an atmosphere. They both sit below the current Vocational Training Center in terms of education output, but are good early game education structures. The Fish R Us is similar in mechanics to the existing Canteen, except it utilizes Fish instead of Rum. I'm not going to post a picture of it here, you just have to see it in-game.
There are a few other new structures to arrive in this update as well. The new Ancient Alien Quantum Physics tech unlocks two new Alien structures, the Alien Solar Tower and the Quantum Food Silo, which both represent much needed Alien upgrades to existing structures. Climate Science Theory tech has also been added to the game, and unlocking it will allow you to build the new Nuclear Water Synthesis Plant, which I felt was needed particularly on the Lunar and Abandoned Worlds.
On top of all of the new content, some tweaks have been made to some of the existing items in the game. I have increased the charcoal output of the Charcoal Factory, slightly reduced the rum consumption of the Canteen, increased the spice and ether storage on the Lander, added a small amount of Helium 3 and Salt Water storage to the Lander, and added several new upgrade paths for existing structures to take advantage of the new content.
There are also some technical changes and fixes. Firstly, I corrected an issue where players who were not logged in to an Ape Apps Account were unable to play the game. I fixed a bug where MC2 was unable to load using the new Ape Apps Launcher. Structures can now be placed directly over Terrain objects, doing so will automatically bulldoze the terrains underneath. I corrected several technical issues with the Galactic Board of Trade. Fixed a bug where you could no longer properly build Palm Trees or Synthetic Crystalline deposits. There were also several minor fixes and UI tweaks made to the game.
All in all, this update includes 1 new Terrain object, 3 new Techs, 2 new Resources, 1 new Unit, and 16 new Structures. I want to thank everyone who contributed content to this release (as well as bug reports and suggestions), and I hope that you all take a moment to show them some gratitude as well! This update took a bit longer than normal, but I think you will find that it was worth the wait. It should be available to play right now on the Launcher and on the Web, and should be hitting Android and iPhone over the coming days, so let me know what you think, let me know what issues you find, and stay tuned for more!
https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/
#mycolony2
If you look at the screenshot above and think that something seems a bit fishy, then you would be correct. This update adds fish as a new resource, and you will now see them swimming around in the oceans on the Water World map! Fish are technically a Terrain type object in the game engine much like Ore and Gold deposits, except this is the first terrain class that can be generated in the water. The object also rotates in a circle, to give the appearance that the fish are swimming. They will spread too, similar to synthetic crystalline (although at a slower rate). The oceans on Water World are so overflowing with fish, that I doubt anybody will ever run out.
To go along with the new fish resource are the also-new Fish Dropoff structure and the Trawler unit, which are available pretty early on in the game and made with models provided by @spamdude . The Fish Dropoff can store 2500 Fish and also converts some of it into food, but once you unlock Salt Water production, you can also build the shore based Refrigerated Fish Bins for additional Fish storage. In addition to the new content, the existing Fish Hatchery gains fish storage and slight generation.
Moving on, there was a massive dump of community submitted MC2 models on the Official Discord Server recently, with contributions coming in from @spamdude , @SPARKY0303 and @DoYouHaveAnyOats , so please take a moment to thank these three users for their contributions to the game! In the screenshot below, you can see many of the new structures.
New buildings provided by @SPARKY0303 are the Hospital, the Virtual Music Experience and the Integrated Nuclear Reactor. The Hospital was a much needed upgrade to the two infirmary structures which were increasingly unable to keep up with the medical demands of larger colonies. The Virtual Music Experience adds a new semi-early game entertainment structure for your colonists (which also generates some money) and the Integrated Nuclear Reactor is another much needed structure, providing a power boosting upgrade to the existing Small Nuclear Reactor.
In addition to the new Fish related content already mentioned, further contributions from @spamdude include the new Medium Software Studio, Advanced Drilling Platform, Integrated Warehouse, and Medium Security Station. The Medium Software Studio, Integrated Warehouse and Medium Security Station each represent new mid-game upgrades to some of the existing structures that badly needed upgrade options, with the new Integrated Warehouse in particular adding storage for many resources that the regular Warehouse did not cover.
The new Advanced Drilling Platform might just be everyone's new favorite structure. Currently the most expensive building in the game and requiring the new Ultra Deep Excavation tech, the Advanced Drilling Platform consumes Helium 3 (as well as a fair amount of Power, Water and Bandwidth) while producing Ore, Regolith, Gold, Aluminum, Oil, Salt Water, the new Clay resource, and even a few Alien Artifacts! Clearly you are going to need to get your hands on some Helium 3 in order to operate this thing, but you can either find it in the Galactic Board of Trade, or the new Integrated Nuclear Reactor also produces enough Helium 3 to operate one Advanced Drilling Platform. I have also added a new Helium 3 Tank to the game, since it is clear that more He3 storage will be needed going forward.
From @DoYouHaveAnyOats we have three new structures, the Elementary School, High School and the nonsense Fish 'R Us building.
The two school models to me looked like they required an Atmospheric environment, so they are only available on worlds which would have an atmosphere. They both sit below the current Vocational Training Center in terms of education output, but are good early game education structures. The Fish R Us is similar in mechanics to the existing Canteen, except it utilizes Fish instead of Rum. I'm not going to post a picture of it here, you just have to see it in-game.
There are a few other new structures to arrive in this update as well. The new Ancient Alien Quantum Physics tech unlocks two new Alien structures, the Alien Solar Tower and the Quantum Food Silo, which both represent much needed Alien upgrades to existing structures. Climate Science Theory tech has also been added to the game, and unlocking it will allow you to build the new Nuclear Water Synthesis Plant, which I felt was needed particularly on the Lunar and Abandoned Worlds.
On top of all of the new content, some tweaks have been made to some of the existing items in the game. I have increased the charcoal output of the Charcoal Factory, slightly reduced the rum consumption of the Canteen, increased the spice and ether storage on the Lander, added a small amount of Helium 3 and Salt Water storage to the Lander, and added several new upgrade paths for existing structures to take advantage of the new content.
There are also some technical changes and fixes. Firstly, I corrected an issue where players who were not logged in to an Ape Apps Account were unable to play the game. I fixed a bug where MC2 was unable to load using the new Ape Apps Launcher. Structures can now be placed directly over Terrain objects, doing so will automatically bulldoze the terrains underneath. I corrected several technical issues with the Galactic Board of Trade. Fixed a bug where you could no longer properly build Palm Trees or Synthetic Crystalline deposits. There were also several minor fixes and UI tweaks made to the game.
All in all, this update includes 1 new Terrain object, 3 new Techs, 2 new Resources, 1 new Unit, and 16 new Structures. I want to thank everyone who contributed content to this release (as well as bug reports and suggestions), and I hope that you all take a moment to show them some gratitude as well! This update took a bit longer than normal, but I think you will find that it was worth the wait. It should be available to play right now on the Launcher and on the Web, and should be hitting Android and iPhone over the coming days, so let me know what you think, let me know what issues you find, and stay tuned for more!
https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/
#mycolony2
On spice worlds, spice veins don't seem to work properly anymore. Rather than growing an increasingly large ring of spice around itself, every spice vein I've seen so far will only create spice in a maximum of three adjacent tiles, with spice simply failing to appear in any other spot. After poking around some unloaded segments, I realized that spice still spawns at normal rates, but because much of the time the three available spaces are already filled, the newly-spawned spice and existing spice deposits will cancel each other out. In the game editor, none of the data values seem to be off, so I'm guessing the issue has to do with how the game internally calculates spread.
So a couple of days ago the state of the Ape Apps website was briefly being discussed, and I mentioned the idea of merging the forum section of the website into Ape Chat and just having all discussions take place in there. I have since given it a little thought, and I believe I have come up with the solution that I am ultimately going to implement, and that is what I want to discuss here.
Some time (probably) this year, I am going to be retiring the forums here on ape-apps.com, the official Discord server and even Ape Chat, and I will be sort of merging all three of them into a new/resurrected Discussions app.
Since most people here have joined during the My Colony "era" of Ape Apps, many may not remember the "Discussions" era, but it was my original app business success story, basically the thing that let me quit my "real" job and go full time with app development. I am going to give a quick history here of the Discussions app, and then talk about why that is the direction I am going to be going in and what it's going to look like.
Back in 2010, one of my very first apps was called Super Bored, which was an extremely basic communications app where people could post text and eventually pictures onto a single threaded chat board. The app started to gain a following, so I decided to copy/past the code and release another simple forum app called World of Warcraft Discussion. That one became even more popular, so I followed it up with Star Craft Discussion, Halo Discussion, Call of Duty Discussion, Body Building Discussion, and several others. The next thing I knew, all of these "Discussion" apps were getting a pretty active following, but it was sort of a pain to maintain all of them, so since they were all running on the same server anyway, I decided to merge them all into one giant forum app that was simply called Discussions.
Discussions was pretty active, up until Google removed it from the Play store (back then it was still called the Android Market) due to copyright complaints from Activision over the Call of Duty section and CoD images being visible in some of the screenshots. I tried to appeal, but not only was I rejected, they actually followed up by nuking my entire developer account because of the other video game themed Discussion apps I had (Halo, WoW, etc).
Anyway, the community lived on for a while, but with out the apps being on the market place anymore, it slowly faded away. There is still a remnant of it on a Discord channel, and part of it slit off into the RP Forums forum community. But eventually my interests moved on to making games and business applications and I never really put a serious effort into bringing back Discussions. There is still a remnant of Discussions that you can see as the first category here in the forums section of the website.
So fast forward to now, where I have Ape Chat, which is now embedded into both of the My Colony games. I have found it to be extremely handy to be able to communicate with the game players without having to actually have the game running, and my plan was to start implementing Ape Chat into most of my applications. But then we run into the situation where Ape Apps now has the chat, the forums, and also now the Discord channel for discussions. To my thinking, why do we need to have three different places, when everything could just be together in the same app?
So this is my plan for the new Discussions app, a merging of the Ape Chat, Forums, and Discord server into one unified place. Now I am not going to be using the old Discussions code or anything, and really beyond the name of the app, it's not going to have much to do with the old Discussions. But in my opinion, the name "Ape Chat" does not make sense for an app that allows more than chat. And plus I already own several domains related to Discussions that have been sitting collecting dust in my account for years now.
So what will the new Discussions be like?
I have a lot of plans, but here is what I am thinking right now. When I originally created Ape Chat, I designed it to be like an IRC server, and a lot of its limitations come from that initial design decision. It works pretty well for just plain chat, but when you want to start adding advanced stuff, it shows its limitations.
First of all, as compared to Ape Chat, the front end and the server are going to be completely disconnected, and in fact, the new Discussions client will allow people to spin up their own servers on their own hardware and run their own private Discussions community with their own rules and setup. Of course, the app will come pre-loaded with the official Ape Apps server.
Within each server there can be any number of channels. I don't know if channel is a good word for it or not, we can come up with something else, but they will also be able to be grouped by topic. So for example, there can now be a My Colony group, with several channels related to My Colony.
There will be multiple types of channels as well. The regular chat channel, which is how Ape Chat is now. There will be threaded channels for a more forum-like setup. There will be voice channels and video chat channels.
There will also be a private messaging system that will be replacing both the "Mail" and "Conversations" features here on ape-apps.com. Private messaging will be one-on-one between two users, or users will be able to create their own private channels like they can now in Ape Chat and do whatever they want. For one-on-one private messaging channels, I plan to support both voice and video, as well as direct P2P file transfers.
What will happen to the forums here?
They will be archived for a while and eventually taken down. The code behind the forums is a mess that has been layered upon more mess over the years, and I will be glad to be done with it. Plus I am tired of fighting constant spam. Users will be encouraged to migrate to the new Discussions platform.
The rest of the site is going to be redone from scratch, and will be more of a static information and marketing site for my stuff, but I will still maintain "What's New" type posts and updates, as well as an RSS feed that people can subscribe to. Actually, the new Discussions app will probably read that RSS feed as well.
What will happen to the Discord server?
It will ultimately be shut down once the new service is ready. I don't really think it will be needed anymore, and plus I really don't like Discord. You may look at the features from the new Discussions and ask "why not just use Discord instead?" The reason is that I cannot embed Discord into my apps, and not only will I be able to do that with Discussions, I will be able to do it in a completely custom way that lets the service have app specific features.
What will happen to Ape Chat?
Discussions is basically the next version of Ape Chat with a re-branding. It will simply redirect to the new domain, and all of the in-game implementations of Ape Chat will be migrated over to Discussions.
Conclusion
This is probably going to happen some time this summer. If you have suggestions on what the new service can look like, you can feel free to leave them here. I think it's going to be a lot better than the current Ape Chat, and it will be nice to only have to go to one place for communications!
Also fun fact, Discussions has an id of 1 on the Ape Market internal database, it's the first app I ever added to the Ape Market (actually, the whole reason I created the Ape Market was to host Discussions after Google took it down).
Some time (probably) this year, I am going to be retiring the forums here on ape-apps.com, the official Discord server and even Ape Chat, and I will be sort of merging all three of them into a new/resurrected Discussions app.
Since most people here have joined during the My Colony "era" of Ape Apps, many may not remember the "Discussions" era, but it was my original app business success story, basically the thing that let me quit my "real" job and go full time with app development. I am going to give a quick history here of the Discussions app, and then talk about why that is the direction I am going to be going in and what it's going to look like.
Back in 2010, one of my very first apps was called Super Bored, which was an extremely basic communications app where people could post text and eventually pictures onto a single threaded chat board. The app started to gain a following, so I decided to copy/past the code and release another simple forum app called World of Warcraft Discussion. That one became even more popular, so I followed it up with Star Craft Discussion, Halo Discussion, Call of Duty Discussion, Body Building Discussion, and several others. The next thing I knew, all of these "Discussion" apps were getting a pretty active following, but it was sort of a pain to maintain all of them, so since they were all running on the same server anyway, I decided to merge them all into one giant forum app that was simply called Discussions.
Discussions was pretty active, up until Google removed it from the Play store (back then it was still called the Android Market) due to copyright complaints from Activision over the Call of Duty section and CoD images being visible in some of the screenshots. I tried to appeal, but not only was I rejected, they actually followed up by nuking my entire developer account because of the other video game themed Discussion apps I had (Halo, WoW, etc).
Anyway, the community lived on for a while, but with out the apps being on the market place anymore, it slowly faded away. There is still a remnant of it on a Discord channel, and part of it slit off into the RP Forums forum community. But eventually my interests moved on to making games and business applications and I never really put a serious effort into bringing back Discussions. There is still a remnant of Discussions that you can see as the first category here in the forums section of the website.
So fast forward to now, where I have Ape Chat, which is now embedded into both of the My Colony games. I have found it to be extremely handy to be able to communicate with the game players without having to actually have the game running, and my plan was to start implementing Ape Chat into most of my applications. But then we run into the situation where Ape Apps now has the chat, the forums, and also now the Discord channel for discussions. To my thinking, why do we need to have three different places, when everything could just be together in the same app?
So this is my plan for the new Discussions app, a merging of the Ape Chat, Forums, and Discord server into one unified place. Now I am not going to be using the old Discussions code or anything, and really beyond the name of the app, it's not going to have much to do with the old Discussions. But in my opinion, the name "Ape Chat" does not make sense for an app that allows more than chat. And plus I already own several domains related to Discussions that have been sitting collecting dust in my account for years now.
So what will the new Discussions be like?
I have a lot of plans, but here is what I am thinking right now. When I originally created Ape Chat, I designed it to be like an IRC server, and a lot of its limitations come from that initial design decision. It works pretty well for just plain chat, but when you want to start adding advanced stuff, it shows its limitations.
First of all, as compared to Ape Chat, the front end and the server are going to be completely disconnected, and in fact, the new Discussions client will allow people to spin up their own servers on their own hardware and run their own private Discussions community with their own rules and setup. Of course, the app will come pre-loaded with the official Ape Apps server.
Within each server there can be any number of channels. I don't know if channel is a good word for it or not, we can come up with something else, but they will also be able to be grouped by topic. So for example, there can now be a My Colony group, with several channels related to My Colony.
There will be multiple types of channels as well. The regular chat channel, which is how Ape Chat is now. There will be threaded channels for a more forum-like setup. There will be voice channels and video chat channels.
There will also be a private messaging system that will be replacing both the "Mail" and "Conversations" features here on ape-apps.com. Private messaging will be one-on-one between two users, or users will be able to create their own private channels like they can now in Ape Chat and do whatever they want. For one-on-one private messaging channels, I plan to support both voice and video, as well as direct P2P file transfers.
What will happen to the forums here?
They will be archived for a while and eventually taken down. The code behind the forums is a mess that has been layered upon more mess over the years, and I will be glad to be done with it. Plus I am tired of fighting constant spam. Users will be encouraged to migrate to the new Discussions platform.
The rest of the site is going to be redone from scratch, and will be more of a static information and marketing site for my stuff, but I will still maintain "What's New" type posts and updates, as well as an RSS feed that people can subscribe to. Actually, the new Discussions app will probably read that RSS feed as well.
What will happen to the Discord server?
It will ultimately be shut down once the new service is ready. I don't really think it will be needed anymore, and plus I really don't like Discord. You may look at the features from the new Discussions and ask "why not just use Discord instead?" The reason is that I cannot embed Discord into my apps, and not only will I be able to do that with Discussions, I will be able to do it in a completely custom way that lets the service have app specific features.
What will happen to Ape Chat?
Discussions is basically the next version of Ape Chat with a re-branding. It will simply redirect to the new domain, and all of the in-game implementations of Ape Chat will be migrated over to Discussions.
Conclusion
This is probably going to happen some time this summer. If you have suggestions on what the new service can look like, you can feel free to leave them here. I think it's going to be a lot better than the current Ape Chat, and it will be nice to only have to go to one place for communications!
Also fun fact, Discussions has an id of 1 on the Ape Market internal database, it's the first app I ever added to the Ape Market (actually, the whole reason I created the Ape Market was to host Discussions after Google took it down).
Well its just a suggestion. Magical stuff is also a suggestion, The first three are made with in game materials.
has anyon experienced one of the three letter fake account bots that somehow have 0 people and are useless to your country, how do i stop these bots
I'm currently having this problem as well, and didn't before. Multiple members on RPF are reporting it as well. I'm using a Dell Latitude E7250, and tried posting with the most updated version of both Firefox and Internet Explorer. It's a lot more frequent on this site than on the Discussions test site, only allowing me to navigate three pages or so before being bunted out. One of my members on RPF can't even log in without being immediately logged out again. Cookies are enabled, so I'm pretty sure this is a bug.
Update: I tried posting this from both my Dell and my Samsung J7 via both mobile Chrome and Firefox, no dice. I can't post on either the Discussions or the new Ape Apps Forums site; even if I'm able to get to the reply field on time without being auto-logged out, the site freezes at "http://discussions.ape-apps.com/submitcreate.php," presumably because it's viewing me as logged out. I'm going to try and get this up on the other forums too since there appear to be more administration activity there, but as it is, I can't.
Update update: Finally. The bug only happens when I'm using wi-fi, if that helps at all. It occurs on both my home and my school wi-fi. I needed to switch to 4G to post this.
Update: I tried posting this from both my Dell and my Samsung J7 via both mobile Chrome and Firefox, no dice. I can't post on either the Discussions or the new Ape Apps Forums site; even if I'm able to get to the reply field on time without being auto-logged out, the site freezes at "http://discussions.ape-apps.com/submitcreate.php," presumably because it's viewing me as logged out. I'm going to try and get this up on the other forums too since there appear to be more administration activity there, but as it is, I can't.
Update update: Finally. The bug only happens when I'm using wi-fi, if that helps at all. It occurs on both my home and my school wi-fi. I needed to switch to 4G to post this.
Windows 8.1 64 bit
My Colony 0.44.0 desktop
Nexus 6P Android 7.1.2
My Colony 0.44.0
Clean install and new colonies on both platforms.
Vehicles are still declining orders. When I instruct them to build anything at all they will move to the location and immediately, most if not all vehicles, will return to their parked location.
Clicking on them and then re-clicking the building they will sometimes return their parked location. It takes two or three attempts to get them to start building.
Never once have I witnessed every single vehicle build on the first attempt.
My Colony 0.44.0 desktop
Nexus 6P Android 7.1.2
My Colony 0.44.0
Clean install and new colonies on both platforms.
Vehicles are still declining orders. When I instruct them to build anything at all they will move to the location and immediately, most if not all vehicles, will return to their parked location.
Clicking on them and then re-clicking the building they will sometimes return their parked location. It takes two or three attempts to get them to start building.
Never once have I witnessed every single vehicle build on the first attempt.
90% of my colonists don't have a job and wont get one.
The statistics give other information than the information bar at the top.
People wont employ themselves after I fire drill.
I have done three fire drills trying to fight problems, now the problems are magnified.
People wont go to the hydroponics centers so I am now relying on food donated to me.
Same goes for water. My power plants run on water too, so that's an extra problem.
I have about 10 000 colonists but I cannot tell for sure because the stats page hasn't updated in a while.
I have waited about 3 hours ingame for my citizens to reemploy.
I have tried fire drilling again.
I have tried manually employing citizens - which is a broken feature, I should mention.
I am running pc 0.44.0
Thanks in advance.
PS if the developer reads this. I could send you the world files so you can check it out
The statistics give other information than the information bar at the top.
People wont employ themselves after I fire drill.
I have done three fire drills trying to fight problems, now the problems are magnified.
People wont go to the hydroponics centers so I am now relying on food donated to me.
Same goes for water. My power plants run on water too, so that's an extra problem.
I have about 10 000 colonists but I cannot tell for sure because the stats page hasn't updated in a while.
I have waited about 3 hours ingame for my citizens to reemploy.
I have tried fire drilling again.
I have tried manually employing citizens - which is a broken feature, I should mention.
I am running pc 0.44.0
Thanks in advance.
PS if the developer reads this. I could send you the world files so you can check it out
Greetings everyone, it's time for another shiny new version of My Colony, v0.45.0! This update is a lot smaller than I had planned, but there were numerous bug fixed that I wanted to get pushed out, so I rushed it. It's still solid gold though, do don't worry :-) Here is what's new:
My Colony v0.45.0 Changelog
New Stuff
If it seems like this update is rushed, it was. It's ok though. There were a lot of bug fixes made to pathfinding (again), and colonist/vehicle selection. I also found a bug that was making harvesting vehicles request a new path from the path finder almost non-stop, which is now fixed. This should increase performance and help with mobile battery consumption.
Beyond that, this was mostly a Zolarg update. You might notice they have a new alien artifact of their own, the Alien Relic. This comes from the same ancient alien race as the Alien Artifacts on human worlds, and will open up the Zolarg's own alien tech tree in the updates to come. Eventually there will be three classes of ancient alien resources in the game and combining them will allow each team to unlock the ultimate ancient power in the game! But that is a ways off.
Finally, for premium users, a casual Creative Mode has been added. All building options are unlocked and cost nothing to build, so you can make whatever kind of colony you want. Offline only, of course.
One final thing to note, the server that the web version of My Colony is hosted on is acting up right now. I think I am being throttled because I have used up all of my hosting bandwidth for the month. I expect it to be resolved by Oct 1, and it shouldn't impact the Android/iOS/Windows/Mac/Linux versions of the game, only the browser-based version.
That's all for now, much more to come, and thanks for playing!
My Colony v0.45.0 Changelog
New Stuff
- New Structures: Unholy Pit of Stuff, Unholy Mound of Worship, Unholy Core Mine
- New Resource: Alien Relic
- New Premium Content: Creative Mode
- LIS Black Market Bazzar now randomly gives out a random resource in exchange for 1 coin. Goods are always flowing in through the black market.
- Unfinished changes to the 'New Game' flow
If it seems like this update is rushed, it was. It's ok though. There were a lot of bug fixes made to pathfinding (again), and colonist/vehicle selection. I also found a bug that was making harvesting vehicles request a new path from the path finder almost non-stop, which is now fixed. This should increase performance and help with mobile battery consumption.
Beyond that, this was mostly a Zolarg update. You might notice they have a new alien artifact of their own, the Alien Relic. This comes from the same ancient alien race as the Alien Artifacts on human worlds, and will open up the Zolarg's own alien tech tree in the updates to come. Eventually there will be three classes of ancient alien resources in the game and combining them will allow each team to unlock the ultimate ancient power in the game! But that is a ways off.
Finally, for premium users, a casual Creative Mode has been added. All building options are unlocked and cost nothing to build, so you can make whatever kind of colony you want. Offline only, of course.
One final thing to note, the server that the web version of My Colony is hosted on is acting up right now. I think I am being throttled because I have used up all of my hosting bandwidth for the month. I expect it to be resolved by Oct 1, and it shouldn't impact the Android/iOS/Windows/Mac/Linux versions of the game, only the browser-based version.
That's all for now, much more to come, and thanks for playing!
Every now and then, I get a colonist named PlatinumOre. I've been getting it since I started playing a while back. PlatinumOre colonists have appeared on the Windows, browser, and Android versions. It's not game breaking, but it's something that I'm nitpicking.
I've only played United Earth's red planet level on all three versions.
I've only played United Earth's red planet level on all three versions.
The first three player who built the statue of unbrillend access should get their name into the game. That's why we have colonists named Hayenn, Vyryn and PlatinumOre
I am having the same issue. The game runs fine with all my other bots doing their thing but the moment I try to harvest crystalline, I get really bad lag. For me it's only when I set two or three bots to harvest. Note: I have a large patch of synthetic crystalline that was taking over the map so there's a wall around it and I have a few "doors" in the wall (sections that are road instead of wall) so they can get in.