Galactic Dominion

Released: Sep 6, 2018
Platforms: Windows
Last updated: 07 Sep 2026, 15:41 GMT

Updates & announcements

20 posts

18 May 2020Developer post
[Major Update] 2.0.0 - UI Overhaul, Global Resources, Ship Designer, and more!
I'm happy to announce a major update to Galactic Dominion bringing to you much needed improvements to the UI, quality of life controls, tutorial, gameplay balance, and new features. Here are some highlights. Hope you guys enjoy it! UI Overhaul Global Resources, Balance & Opti
I'm happy to announce a major update to Galactic Dominion bringing to you much needed improvements to the UI, quality of life controls, tutorial, gameplay balance, and new features. Here are some highlights. Hope you guys enjoy it!

UI Overhaul
Global Resources, Balance & Optimization
First Time User Experience
Full Changelist
[1] UI Overhaul
One of the biggest complaint was the game's controls. I've gone through each of the menus and controls in the game and re-implemented and expanded on quite a number of them. The new UI is more streamlined and efficient for fast gameplay. All the menu animation has been sped up to not waste precious time on menu transitions.
The Star Control is now a movable window that can stay open even when you select a Fleet. You can also clearly see both the Industry and Drydock queue as well as manage the Workers, Industry, and Drydock all in one panel.
Clicking on the Drydock panel will reveal the build commands to queue all the different ship variants. More on variants later.
The Fleet Control also received a major overhaul. You can now see detailed info on the health and hardpoints of each specific ship within the fleet. Furthermore, the previous need to "stage" ships before you can set a command in version 1.x has been removed. You can now click directly on the control commands on top that become available when the respective action is valid.
The Outliner is a brand new tool to improve the quality of life. It lists all the Stars and Fleets under you command and shows some important info regarding the state of the unit. A right highlight indicated that your Star or Fleet is engaged in combat. If you click on the item the camera will automatically pan to its location.
The Ship Designer brings a complete new layer of depth to the game. You can now design up to 3 different variants of a ship type by loading different weapon hardpoints. In fact, after unlocking the properly technologies your Colony Ships and Transports would be able to be equipped with weapons and engage in combat. Each ship variant comes with a different voxel model which allows you to know you fleet composition at a glance.
[2] Global Resources, Balance & Optimization
In the new update the empire resources are generated from industrial capacity. There are 4 types, Refineries, Factories, Farms, and Research Labs. Refineries generate Minerals, Factories generate Ship Parts, Farms generate Food, and Research Labs generate Crystals and add to Scientists to your empire.
Resource cost of industries and ships are consumed upfront now. If you cancel the build from the queue the cost will be refunded to you.
This has allowed for a great number of optimization to the game. The number of supported stars has been increased drastically for all galaxy sizes as well as increases the max speed to x5 and x10. Compare that to the previous x2 max speed.
Because of both the way resources are calculated and consumed, the research and its effects have been re-balanced (in some cases reworked), the AI has been improved, and the Campaign chapters have been updated to reflect these changes.
[3] First Time User Experience
One of the biggest problem was introducing new users to some of the quirkiness of the game. I've added a tutorial (Chapter 0 of the Campaign) which hopefully will guide the player through all the major controls that they need to know in order to play the game effectively.
[4] Full Changelist
For those interested in all the changes, the list can be found here:

UI Overhaul

Control access now has icons and placed on the left side.
Added Ship Designer.
Added Outliner.
Complete overhaul of Star/Fleet Controls (more intuitive to use).
Time Control (added fast forward x5 x10).
Star & Fleet controls can be opened at the same time.
Tooltips show more relevant info.
All menus reviewed.
Menu transition animation sped up.
Hardpoint concept

Colony Ships and Transports can support weapons.
Ships can support multiple hardpoints.
Supports up to 3 variants.
Research Tree updated
Global resources

Star industries contribute to Industrial Capacity which in turn generate resources.
Resources are consumed upfront when queuing builds and returned when cancelling
Removed complexity of Infrastructure on Stars.
Added Research Labs to boost Crystal and Scientists.
Worker boost to industry, drydock, and growth updated.
Campaign

Added First Time User Experience Tutorial.
Balance campaign based on global research and updated technologies.
Hardpoints are carried forward in Campaign (similar to Research).
Research & Hardpoint progression can be changed by replaying a Chapter.
Improved AI behaviour

AI will now more aggressively try to colonize the entire Galaxy.
AI will no longer remove queued Ships since costs are debit upfront.
Various improvements to AI mission selection.
Optimization

Optimize the way the Stars and units were updated.
Optimize the texture and text.
Increase max number of Stars for each galaxy size.
Increase max speed for fast forward.
Balance

Initial Star always starts with a StarFortress.
Rebalance research technologies.
Rebalance economy based on global resources.
Nerf Missile damage.
Cheat mode now enabled (for those who can find the cheat codes!)
And more!
Bug fixes

Players can now take back control from AI once empire assistance or Total War is activated.
Fixed issues with Tooltips not updating in realtime.
Fixed issue with sliders distributed incorrectly.
Fixed Star Fortress potentially getting stuck when reaching destination.
Fixed issue where unoccupied Stars show incorrect max Star Fortresses.
Fix potential crash when unloading in GroundInvasion.
Fix Star Lanes loading crash when StarLanes are generated or loaded from xml.
Fix sliders not distributing correctly when locked.
And more!
Until next time!
Original post
24 Oct 2018Developer post
[Update] 1.1.0.a - Fix starvation issue on larger galaxies
Release Notes: - Fix potential starvation issue on large galaxies when Food Supply consumption exceeds the (previous) max of 10k Previously, the maximum amount of Food Supply was 10k. This meant that on larger galaxies you can have population consumption that exceed this amount,
30 Sep 2018Developer post
Galactic Dominion - Version 1.1.0 is Now Live!
We've finally incremented the build to Version 1.1.0 with a brand new Steam logo. Since 1.0 the game has come a long way and been patched 12 times. I want to take this opportunity to summarize all the changes that has gone in since 1.0. 1.1.0 Focus on Unit Hotkey: If you have a S
We've finally incremented the build to Version 1.1.0 with a brand new Steam logo.
Since 1.0 the game has come a long way and been patched 12 times. I want to take this opportunity to summarize all the changes that has gone in since 1.0.
1.1.0

Focus on Unit Hotkey: If you have a Star, Star Fortress, or Fleet selected you can hit by default to pan to it. If you hold the key it will follow the Unit. You can change this key in the Input Mapper.
The Unit selection circle is now thicker and green for easier visibility.
Fixed an issue where the Star Fortress HP was not showing in the battle info panel.
Fixed and issue where in Turn Base Mode a Units destination Nav point was not positioned correctly.
1.0.2018.08.18.l

Game Speeds: x0.5, x1.0, x1.5, and x2.0.
Research Game Settings: Randomized Effort Factor.
Research Tree Zoom In/Out and Middle Mouse pan.
Research In-Progress is now an different color.
Fleets can now be Split while In Dock.
Fleets will now move to an offset location if the dock is occupied/full.
Fixed issue where the Objectives button disappears in Turn-Based Mode.
1.0.2018.08.18.k

Implemented the Hotkeys and Input Mapping system.
1.0.2018.08.18.j3

Zoom In to Mouse position.
Tweak thresholds for Camera panning near the screen edges.
Slider panel lock distribution ToolTip.
1.0.2018.08.18.j2

Camera Pan sensitivity Option.
Make Game Options more scalable for future updates.
1.0.2018.08.18.j

Research now has a small chance of a Scientist boost.
Quick Play now has Extended Research setting.
Options Menu now has Screen Edge Pan.
Fix Star Spectral Type not showing the proper Star type.
1.0.2018.08.18.i2

Fix Achievements not unlocked for some players.
1.0.2018.08.18.i

Star Info ToolTip will now show up if you Mouse over a Star.
ToolTips now show up slightly faster in general.
Star Influence border is now highlighted in the Empire color.
Game Style (Palette and Pattern) can now be changed from Options Menu.
1.0.2018.08.18.h2

Fix Chapter End Outro not showing up.
1.0.2018.08.18.h

Remove the Pause Menu Transition Anim.
1.0.2018.08.18.g

Balance Campaign Chapter 3.
1.0.2018.08.18.f

Unity Analytics is now disabled
Added Big Font Mode for ToolTips
1.0.2018.08.18.e

Added the ability to change Star Names you own
Star Names will now be shown while Zoomed Out if your Scanner Verbosity is set to at least Low (default value)
1.0.0

Initial Release.
Until next time! ːsteamhappyː
Original post
28 Sep 2018Developer post
[Update] 1.0.2018.08.18.l - Research tweaks, Speed Control, and other Quality of Life changes
Release Notes: Game Speeds: x0.5, x1.0, x1.5, and x2.0 Research Game Settings: Randomized Effort Factor Research Tree Zoom In/Out and Middle Mouse pan Research In-Progress is now an different color Fleets can now be Split while In Dock Fleets will now move to an offset location i
Release Notes:

Game Speeds: x0.5, x1.0, x1.5, and x2.0
Research Game Settings: Randomized Effort Factor
Research Tree Zoom In/Out and Middle Mouse pan
Research In-Progress is now an different color
Fleets can now be Split while In Dock
Fleets will now move to an offset location if the dock is occupied/full
Fixed issue where the Objectives button disappears in Turn-Based Mode
[1] Game Speeds
You can now toggle the speed with the "-" and "=" keys. These are customizable in the Input Mapper. Unfortunately, if they are not map you will have to reset to default first.
During early game you can speed up the game to get things moving and then if it gets too intense you can slow it down.
This is only available in Real-Time Mode.
[2] Research: Randomized Effort Factor
This option will multiple a Research Topic's effort by up to +/- 10% in order to give more variation to Research costs.
This is enabled by default and applies to all Campaign chapters. You can disable it in the Quick Play settings.
When resuming a save from previous versions this setting will be automatically applied and research effort will receive a random factor. Saving with this update will maintain the proper value.
[3] Research Tree Zoom and Pan
You can now Zoom In/Out with the Mouse Wheel as well as Pan with the Middle-Mouse button. The behaviour is a bit closer to in the Game Scene (although not exact)
Because of this the containers, borders, and fonts for the topics have been increased.
[4] Research In Progress
Any research in progress now has an orange color to make it easier to identify at a glance.
[5][6] Fleet Splitting & In Dock
You can now split you're Fleet while it's in Dock.
The new Fleet will automatically move to an offset position near the dock.
Similarly, if your Fleet arrives at a dock that does not have enough space or is occupied by an enemy it will also move to an offset position.
[7] Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where if you end your turn in Turn-Based Mode the Objectives button disappears.
Hope you guys like the latest updates - Let me know!
Original post
23 Sep 2018Developer post
[Update] 1.0.2018.08.18.k - Hotkeys and Input Mapping
Been working on this update the last couple days. There's now an input system that can be customized to your liking. By default the keys are laid out as follows: Customization of your hotkeys is done through the Control Mapper button in the Options Menu. Clicking on this will ope
Been working on this update the last couple days. There's now an input system that can be customized to your liking. By default the keys are laid out as follows:
Customization of your hotkeys is done through the Control Mapper button in the Options Menu. Clicking on this will open the mapper where you can set the General keys or the specific Star and Fleet Panel keys:

Star Industry
Star Drydock
Fleet Actions
Fleet Tactics
The hotkeys for the Star and Fleet panels are laid out by default (on a standard US Keyboard) to match the layout of it's corresponding button layout:
If you have a Star selected then you can quickly toggle between the Industry and Drydock panel through the H and N keys respectively.
Likewise, if you have a Fleet selected you can toggle between the Command and Tactics panel through the same H and N keys.
Once the panel is activated you can access the shortcuts for the corresponding panel.
This update completes some of the larger control changes. Next time we'll get back to adding some general improvements and enhancements to the game.
Until then!
Original post
19 Sep 2018Developer post
[Update] 1.0.2018.08.18.j3 - Zoom to Mouse position and other tweaks!
--------------------- Release Notes: --------------------- 1. Zoom In to Mouse position 2. Tweak thresholds for Camera panning near the screen edges 3. Slider panel lock distribution ToolTip --------------------- Finally - You can now zoom in to the Mouse position! However, if yo
18 Sep 2018Developer post
[Update] 1.0.2018.08.18.j2 - Camera Pan Sensitivity slider
Small update today! In the Game Options you can now adjust the sensitivity slider for the Camera Pan. Previously, the value was around 20, now it's default to 10. Also, this should be the last update that will reset your Game Options. Under the hood i've done some refactoring of
17 Sep 2018Developer post
[Update] 1.0.2018.08.18.j - Research Update and Quality of Life changes
--------------------- Release Notes: --------------------- 1. Research now has a small chance of a Scientist boost 2. Quick Play now has Extended Research setting 3. Options Menu now has Screen Edge Pan 4. Fix Star Spectral Type not showing the proper Star type ------------------
16 Sep 2018Developer post
[Update] 1.0.2018.08.18.i2 - Fix Achievements not unlocked for some players
For players who won some Quick Play games before Tuesday's 1.0.2018.08.18.h2 update there's a chance that the Achievements did not unlock. If that happened then the opportunity to unlock them became lost for certain achievements - (e.g. Galactic Solider, Leader, Commander, etc se
16 Sep 2018Developer post
[Update] 1.0.2018.08.18.i - Star Info ToolTips and Game Styles!
I've been experimenting and working on some bigger updates in the last few days. Here's a rollout of what's new with 1.0.2018.08.18.i (I'll talk about the versioning numbers in a future post). --------------------- Release Notes: --------------------- 1. Star Info ToolTip will no
12 Sep 2018Developer post
[Update] 1.0.2018.08.18.h2 - Fix Chapter End Outro Not Showing Up!
I got sidetracked from working on some new features to investigate this issue ːsteamsadː A number of people have reported that they did not get the Chapter end game popup and saw strange things happen at the end of the game (e.g. Troop counts were jumping erratically, etc). The C
10 Sep 2018Developer post
[Update] 1.0.2018.08.18.h - Remove the Pause Menu Transition Anim
Small quality of life improvement here. Previously, in the game scene, every time you went into the menus the game would play a small transition animation to pan the camera to the side before the content loaded. While this was cool at first (at least I thought so) - it broke the
09 Sep 2018Developer post
[Update] 1.0.2018.08.18.g - Balance Campaign Chapter 3
I've been hearing that Chapter 3 was a bit too hard so took a look into the balancing more. Since I've played each Chapter so much I knew exactly what had to be done in each one so it is a bit difficult to balance - perhaps even more so than Quick Play mode since in the Chapters
09 Sep 2018Developer post
[Update] 1.0.2018.08.18.f - Disabling Unity Analytics & Big Font Mode for ToolTips
Release Notes: --- - Unity Analytics is now disabled - Added Big Font Mode for ToolTips First, I want to address the issue of data collection and why I decided to disable it altogether. There's a lot of misconception surrounding data collection particularly in recent months with
08 Sep 2018Developer post
[Update] 1.0.2018.08.18.e - Changing Star Names & Showing them while Zoomed Out
Release Notes: --- - Added the ability to change Star Names you own - Star Names will now be shown while Zoomed Out if your Scanner Verbosity is set to at least Low (default value) Thanks SnottyGremlin for the original idea - i.e. to be able to see the Star Names while you're zoo
08 Sep 2018Developer post
Post-Launch - Product Backlog and Ideas!
We want to give you guys a quick update post-launch. We're getting some great feedback (and criticism) on the user interface and controls. All feedback is appreciated so we want to get all the ideas organized and prioritized so we can start improving the base game immediately. To
07 Sep 2018Developer post
Galactic Dominion is Now Live!
Hi Everyone! We're excited to announce that Galactic Dominion has officially gone live. In celebration of the launch of our first game we're offering a 15% launch discount on Steam! Enjoy! Forever Years
06 Sep 2018Developer post
Combat Mechanics and Research
Tomorrow, Galactic Dominion will go live! But before that we will go into a bit more details about a couple more mechnics. 1. Combat a. Fleet Combat b. Fleet Tactics c. Star Fortresses d. Planetary Bombardment e. Ground Invasion 2. Research 1. Combat Combat can either take place
Tomorrow, Galactic Dominion will go live!
But before that we will go into a bit more details about a couple more mechnics.
1. Combat

a. Fleet Combat
b. Fleet Tactics
c. Star Fortresses
d. Planetary Bombardment
e. Ground Invasion
2. Research
1. Combat
Combat can either take place in space or on the ground so we'll go into a bit more details here.
1.a Fleet Combat
Fleets are composed of Ships. And Ships can come in a few types. Colony Ships, Transports, Fighters, Bombers, and Battleships.
Colony Ships and Transports are non-combative and used mainly to colonize and invade enemy Star systems respectively. (More on the invasion further down)
Fighters, Bombers, and Battleships are the main weapons in your Fleet. Each Ship type has it's strengths and weaknesses.
Fighters - Cost the least, have a boost to movement and fires a laser canon at a high rate. It does however, have lower hit points and are vulnerable to Battleships.
Battleships - Cost a more, moves slower, and are weak against Bombers. But they have high hit points and fires a strong and effect Beam weapon against Fighters.
Bombers - Are designed to Battleships, Star Fortresses, and bombard Planets but they are extremely vulnerable against Fighters so would require an escort. More on Star Fortresses and Bombardment further below.
When a Fleet gets within range of an enemy Fleet, they will automatically open fire. Taking into account each Fleet's Attack, Defense, and Hit Points. Defense will reduce any Attack before applying the damage to the Hit Points so researching advance technologies (more on this in a bit) will be critical in your Fleet missions.
Yellow Fleet being decimated here. Scanner Verbosity set to Low to show the HP and Tactics overlay.
1.b Fleet Tactics
Fleets can be boosted with Tactics once the proper research is completed. These are commands that you can give individual Fleets in order to gain an advantage over the enemy. Alternatively, if you enable your AI Commander they will automatically try to find the best Tactic to use in their given situation.
Here your Fleet takes Attack Mark I, an attack stance that boosts your attack by 1 at a cost of defense.
1.c Star Fortresses
Star Fortresses are primary used as defensive structures for your Star system. They do not take Command points to build but are limited based on the research level you have unlocked.
They are slow moving, cost a lot, vulnerable to Bombers, and can only orbit the local Star where they were created. But they have very high Hit Points and strong ion Flame attack that can hold off many attacking Fleets.
However, the have a very important quality that makes them important and that is, enemies will not be able to Bombard or Invade the Star system if there are any Star Fortresses in orbit. So they effectively acts as a shield for your system.
1.d Planetary Bombardment
Bombers, as mentioned above, can perform Bombardment actions when they are docked to an enemy Star system and there are no orbiting Star Fortresses.
When bombing begins, you will see the Bombardment overlay appear:
If a Star system loses all its Population (Workers essentially) the system is lost. Bombing may also damage and Industry and kill Troops (represented with the tokens and marked as Defenders.
The more Bombers you stage to perform the Bombardment the more damage system damage you can inflict.
You may also enable the Auto-Bomb feature and the AI Commander will keep bombing the planets until all population is wiped out.
1.e Ground Invasion
Transport ships can start Ground Invasions on a Star system that has no Star Fortresses defending it.
When a Ground Invasion begins the overlay will appear to show the Defender and Attacker tokens along with the Hit Point of the unit currently in combat.
If the Attacker defeats all the defending Troops of the Defender then they will take over the Star system along with any Industry and Workers still in the Star system. This is a less destructive take over than a complete Bombardment mission. Of course, you may wish to reduce the number of defenders first by doing a bombing run and then sending in a ground invasion afterwards.
Like Ships, the Attack and Defense of ground units can be upgraded through research.
Research
Research is divided into four fields:

Computers
Construction
Planetology
Warfare
Computers focuses on unlocking the science of robotics and generally allows you to build Ships more effeciently, automated Mineral mining, and control more Factories per worker unit. Scanner technology can also be found in this field.
Construction focuses on stronger armor, faster ship engines, cheaper Ship and Factory construction cost, and unlocking Star Fortresses.
Planetology focuses on everything related to Food production, Food consumption, Population growth, and Terraformation which further increases Food production rates and max population limits.
Warfare focuses on Ship and Ground Attacks, Command point limits (allowing you to build for more Ships), and Fleet Tactics.
As mentioned in the previous entry, you can select a different Research topic per field and they can be researched simultaneously by allocating Scientists to the desired field.
Scientists are gained per Infrastructure point, and higher level Infrastructure is unlocked by completing more advanced research. Some Star system based research (e.g. better Factories) will first require you to upgrade the Infrastructure before you can take advantage of the technology within the Star system.
That's it for now! We hope to see you all in-game tomorrow! ːsteamhappyː
Original post
03 Sep 2018Developer post
User Interface and Controls
Hope you're all having a good weekend! User Experience has always been a challenging area and it's no different for Galactic Dominion. There are so many things a player can do in the game we were afraid that it would be too overwhelming when it came to controls. Furthermore, the
Hope you're all having a good weekend!
User Experience has always been a challenging area and it's no different for Galactic Dominion.
There are so many things a player can do in the game we were afraid that it would be too overwhelming when it came to controls. Furthermore, the design goal is to make sure that players experienced a quick-paced action strategy so we wanted to try to keep the player in as few screens as possible.
With that said, a lot of information that had to be cramped into the game scene so we divided it into essentially 2 sections. We will go over them at a high level and revisit them in details in future entries.
1. Galaxy Map

a. Overlays
b. ToolTips
c. Empire Control
d. Star Control
e. Fleet Control
2. Pause Menu

a. Research Menu
b. Stars Menu
c. Fleets Menu
d. Statistics Menu
[1] Galaxy Map
On the Galaxy Map, the player can zoom close into the each individual Star systems or far to see most, if not all, of the current galaxy.
Information can generally be found in Overlays or Tooltips.
[1.a] Overlays
Overlays can clutter the game quickly so we provided players an option to toggle the verbosity. It is part of the Scanner system - Think of it as the part of the hyperspace detection system available to the Empires.
[1.b] Tooltips
Tooltips on the other hand contain a lot of information without cluttering up the scene as they are only shown when you hover over an element.
There are Tooltips everywhere and contains useful information such as amounts, progress, penalties, bonuses, etc.
Here are a few examples:
Command ToolTip shown when hovering over the Empire's Command resource:
FoodToolTip shown when hovering over a Star's Food resource:
[1.c] Empire Control
The Empire Control allows you to monitor and manage:
- Research
- Doomsday Meter
- Total War
- Empire AI Assistance
This Control is always available and can be shown or hidden by clicking the Empire button on the side of the Galaxy Map.
[1.d] Star Control
The Star Control allows you to monitor and manage individual Star systems:
- Star Info Panel
- Workers Panel
- Industry Queue Panel
- Drydock Queue Panel
- Governor Panel
This Control is available when you click on a Star system you own. If you click on an enemy Star system, you will not be able to control it obviously, but if you have the proper Scanner capabilities (from Research) then you will be able to see information about their Star system.
[1.e] Fleet Control
The Fleet Control allows you to monitor and manage individual Fleets:
- Fleet Info
- Ship Staging Panel
- Command Panel
- Tactics Panel
- Commander Panel
This Control is available when you click on a Fleet you own. Like the Star Control, if you click on an enemy Fleet you will not be able to see details until you have the proper Scanner technologies.
All the Controls have in-depth Tooltips so if you hover over an element there will be additional information.
There are a couple more minor Controls (Star Fortress Control and the Multi-Selection Control) we will not cover today as they are quite small in comparison.
[2] Pause Menu
The Pause Menu contains a number of sub-menus but we will focus on the 4 that may be used to manage your Empire.
Because of their important they can also be accessed immediately from the bottom HUD on the Galaxy Map:
[2.a] Research Menu
The Research Menu allows you to select the topics to research. You may research up to 4 topics simultaneously, one for each Field.
You will find the Research Tree here and clicking on them will show you the costs and description of the topic. (You can also hover over them for a Tooltip description)
[2.b] Stars Menu
The Stars Menu lists all the Star systems that you have discovered so far. From here you can manage all of your systems, giving you all the same access as the Star Control.
Furthermore, you can run filters and sorts to organize the list and then zoom to the Star with the Focus button.
[2.c] Fleets Menu
Likewise, the Fleets Menu lists all the Fleets that you own and you can track and manage them directly from this menu.
[2.d] Statistics Menu
The Statistics Menu contains a trove of information regarding the progression of your empire.
Once you unlock the appropriate Scanner technology you will also be able to see the statistics of your enemies.
Tutorial Menu
We also wanted to announce that after some preliminary playtests we thought that it was important to include a user manual as a well as a Tutorial section for our players.
We're happy to present to you here the Tutorials Menu we put together this weekend along with our user manual and short video clips on how to perform specific actions in game.
For those curious about the user manual. It will be available in PDF format and shipped with the game but you can also access it on our website here:
http://foreveryears.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GalacticDominion_Manual.pdf
That's it for now. It was a high level overview of the User Interface and Controls but we'll go over them in more details in the future.
Next time we'll go over Research in more details and get ready for the launch of the game!
Original post
31 Aug 2018Developer post
Quick Play Mode
The Quick Play mode is designed so you can have a lot of replayability. These are the settings you can change: Galaxy Size Number of Stars Empire Race Opponents Difficulty Empire AI Assitance Total War Star Lanes Turn-Based Mode The first couple is pretty straightforward. You can
The Quick Play mode is designed so you can have a lot of replayability. These are the settings you can change:

Galaxy Size
Number of Stars
Empire Race
Opponents
Difficulty
Empire AI Assitance
Total War
Star Lanes
Turn-Based Mode
[1][2] The first couple is pretty straightforward. You can customize the size of the galaxy and the number of Star systems in it. Essentially on large galaxies, the travel time will be longer if the density of the Stars are reduced. So a Huge Galaxy with only 5 Stars will take much longer to travel between compared to a Small Galaxy with 5 Stars.
[3] The Empire Race allows you to choose between 4 different races in the game. Each one will have a different bonus and penalty to resource or technology growth. I won't spoil too much about the different races. Alternatively, you can select Random and have a race assigned to either yourself and/or the AI opponents.
[4] The Opponents can range from 1 to 3. Each can have its Aggression and Empire Race customized. Don't be mislead by a Low AI Aggression. They will still attack and will attack early but what changes is the kinds of Missions they send their Fleets on. For example a High Aggression opponent will have a higher rate of attack Missions.
[5] The Difficulty modifier affects the bonuses applied to either the Player or the AI. On easier difficulties this bonus is applied to the player and on higher ones they're applied to the AI. Normal difficulty is the minimum level needed to be able to unlock Steam Achievements.
The next few Settings are more unique to Galactic Dominion.
[6] If you're finding the game too hard, or you simplify want to sit back and watch the AI play out a space epic you can enable Empire AI Assistance. This will essentially enable the AI for your Empire. The AI will help you on everything ranging from Star management (building Industry, Ships, and managing Workers), Fleet missions and movements, to Research selection. Generally, it will perform quite well but if you want to min-max your builds it you will have to take direct control. If you wish to disable the assistance once the game has started you can go into the Empire Control and uncheck the Mobile Empire Governors & Commanders box. Alternatively, you can disable individual Star Governor in the Star Control. We'll go in controls more next time but please note that STeam Achievements are also disabled in this mode.
[7] Total War is something unique to Galactic Dominion. In the Empire Control there's a Doomsday meter that builds up as the different player perform aggressive on one another.
As it fills up, it will change the behaviour of the AI and once it reaches 100%, Total War becomes available. You can trigger it yourself, or if you have the option enabled the AI may also trigger it. It will essentially force the AI Assistance to be enabled but it does not disable Steam Achievements and it has bonuses and penalties applied to all players. You can think of it as the end game where the entire galaxy is so focused on the war effort that things like population growth and defense becomes secondary.
[8] You can enable and disable Star Lanes in Galactic Dominion. Star Lanes you easier to defend choke points but if you want to play without them it's an option. When this is disabled, any Free Space (that is, the area of space outside of any Star influence) will put your Fleets into warp speed. This is to prevent games without Star Lanes to be slow.
[9] Finally, you have the option to enable Turn-Based Mode. The game will start paused and you're turn will pass every time you unpause. This mode will lock in your commands only every game Day which is equivalent to 10 seconds of game time. When you unpause it will process 10 seconds of the game in fast forward speed. Please note, it is note a classical turn base where each player moves one another another. It is a simultaneous turn-based mode where upon starting it will move everyone at once. This mode will change the experience drastically.
I hope with these Quick Play settings you will be able to find lots of replayability to the game - whether it's for a quick fix or for a longer campaign like scenario.
Next time, I will go over the User Interface and Controls for the game. It's something that has caused confusion to some players so I want to cover it in details and what we're working on currently to improve the first time user experience.
Original post

Updates & announcements

1. Combat

1.a Fleet Combat

1.b Fleet Tactics

1.c Star Fortresses

1.d Planetary Bombardment

1.e Ground Invasion

Research

[1] Galaxy Map

[1.a] Overlays

[1.b] Tooltips

[1.c] Empire Control

[1.d] Star Control

[1.e] Fleet Control

[2] Pause Menu

[2.a] Research Menu

[2.b] Stars Menu

[2.c] Fleets Menu

[2.d] Statistics Menu

Tutorial Menu