Ape Apps

So I am just now putting the finishing touches on My Colony v0.91.0, and the update should be going out to all platforms throughout the weekend. I had originally planned on a bit larger of an update, but since it's already Friday evening and I don't want to spend the weekend working on My Colony, I decided to just go ahead and release what I have now and save the rest for next time! Hope you can forgive me 🤔!!

So this update adds a handful of new features and some more IT related content, mostly for Zolarg and Alpha Draconians, but there is some new human stuff too. There is also a "balancing" change that will probably get me a few "you broke the game" 1 star reviews in the app store, but It will be ok in the long run. I'll explain later, until then let's see what's new!

The first new engine change I made is something that has been requested for quite some time now - a variable volume slider for the in-game sound effects, which you can find in the Engine Settings menu:

So now instead of just on or off, you can set the in-game volume to whatever you want. People have been asking for this since I first added sound effects, so I hope you guys get some use out of it!

Next up, if you look at the statistics window for a specific resource, you will see a new "Trade" icon in the top-right corner, if you are playing an online game and you have the GBT.

This is just a simple shortcut that goes straight to the GBT trading screen for the particular resource you are looking at. I will probably be assigning a keyboard shortcut to this soon also, like press T to open the trading window.

Next, as requested in this thread, the global My Colony chat room is now accessible from within the game. This is the chat channel that is embedded on the my-colony.com website, and can also be accessed by clicking on the below button.

The chat channel is available whether you are playing an online or offline game, as long as you are signed into the game using an Ape Apps Account. And speaking of chat, as requested in this thread, I will probably take a couple of days off early next week to create a dedicated Ape Chat app for Android and iPhone. It's probably not necessary on Windows since the detached chat window is pretty easy to use on Desktop, and the Ape Apps Launcher also has chat built in now.

Moving on, the first time you open your colony in v0.91.0, if you had a bunch of embassies from colonies that are no longer active on the server, you will notice a few moments of explosions, as those embassies are all leveled to the ground. Moving forward, the game now verifies all of your embassies to see if they are attached to working colonies. This change is necessary because I plan on adding a couple of embassy interactions to the game over the next few updates, and they need to be attached to real colonies on the server.

Next up, as of this version, the game now keeps track of a couple of extra stats, including the total amount of hours you have played a specific colony. This stat will appear on your stats screen in the next couple of updates, but for existing colonies, the time is relative to the release of v0.91.0, since this data was not tracked beforehand.

Moving right along, you will now notice that Software is available in the GBT now for trading, so have at it!

Ok, now for the change that some people may get upset about. In the last release notes, I said that I would be going back and adding Software requirements to several existing buildings. Well, I decided to start with the biggest one first. The Robotics Factory and the Advanced Robotics Inc. now require Software to build, but more importantly, Robots now require Software as a building material. For a colony with a lot of Advanced Robotics Inc., this can be a major development, since that particular building pumps out Robots so fast, it will really suck up the Software in order to stay running. There is a new building available to help mitigate this change, but I know a lot of people are going to log in to their colony on v0.91.0 and wonder why all of their Robot production has suddenly ground to a halt. I am prepared for the hate though!

So those are the major changes in v0.91.0, let's move on to what is new. This update mainly brought a bit more Information Technology content to the Zolarg and Alpha Draconian races, but there is one new Human structure and even a brand new Premium bot, since it's been a few months since I've added anything new for the loyal paying customers.

As last time, here is a color coded list of the new structures added with this release, with Black representing Human content, Orange for Zolarg content, and Purple for Alpha Draconian content.

• Center for Automation Coding
• Tower of Thoughts
• Hall of Elders
• Mound of Online Business
• Automated Art Display
• Integrated Antanium Impactor
• Coders Den
• I.T. Studio Complex

In addition, Humans have a new technology, Advanced Networking Infrastructure, which is required for the new I.T. Studio Complex, and humans also have a new Premium-Only bot, the Megabot Deluxe, which is a snazzy gold-plated Megabot with 30x the build speed of the normal Megabot.

So the new I.T. Studio Complex pretty much makes the existing Small Software Studio look like a dumpster fire, as it really spits out the Software like nobody's business. Which is good, because you're going to need it to keep those Advanced Robotics, Inc. up and running. I did a rough(ish) calculation, and it takes about 0.75 I.T. Studio Complex structures to supply 1 Advanced Robotics, Inc., which is a pretty intense ratio. I'm sure at some point there will be an even bigger Software studio, but this is what is available at the moment. If you are not building a ton of Robots though, you will be able to keep the GBT well stocked using this new Software studio.

With the rest of the new structures, all races should now be able to produce at least a modest amount of Software. For the Reptilians, I added an earlier game Automated Art Display for producing a few paintings, as it was otherwise difficult early on to build structures like the Potter's Den and the Galactic Fine Arts Exposition.

All of that said, I still have quite a bit to do in terms of adding Information Technology content, but it is coming along somewhat. It's probably going to take at least a couple of more updates, and then moving forward, Software and Bandwidth will probably be important inputs for new content. I am thinking of adding Ether requirements to some of the later-game I.T. stuff too, but not too much since on most games Ether is only going to be available for online players.

So that is all for today's update. As I mentioned at the beginning, I plan on taking the weekend off here (although I might do a new My Colony Podcast episode if I get bored) and then spending the early part of next week on a new chat client for mobile, then I will be back to work, so keep those helpful bug reports and suggestions coming! And as always, thanks for playing My Colony, and stay tuned for more!