Hi everyone!
We thought it would be a great idea to share our thoughts and plans for the current state of the game with you every month. We want to improve our transparency with this to get you a better look at what we are currently working on and whats on our near future TODO list and maybe even a small look at some of the stuff that will await you in the next big update :).
Current state:
The game has now been out for roughly a month and we are really happy and greatful for all the great responses and feedback.
Tutorial:
One of the biggest problems in the first couple of days after release was that the game was missing a tutorial and therefore many had problems getting started. We have quickly added a basic tutorial that helps players getting started but as some of you have already pointed out, its not perfect, very basic and there is room for improvement. We think the same ways and thats why we will do a complete tutorial rework in one of the next bigger updates. We dont have a specific date or update name for that at this point but we will keep you all updated. One thing we definitley want to add is images and more info to each tutorial task plus adding in a couple of extra steps to better explain the current and upcoming game mechanics.
So Tldr:
- Tutorial needs more work
- Rework coming with one of the upcoming bigger updates (Probably the Visual update or Diplomacy update)
- Images for easier understanding
- More tutorial steps to better explain the current and upcoming game mechanics
- A different font for large text blocks because the current one is a bit hard to read
Quality of life:
You guys also made a lot of requests and suggestions regarding quality of life. We have already addressed some of your requests like bigger spaceship hitboxes and markers, mass delete all open notifications via shift + right click, easier to understand trade routes direction buttons and couple more.
Here are is a list of the things we are currently working on and will be part of one of the next updates:
- Hightlighting the connected farm fields when selecting a farm
- Showing more info in the overview camera (like what faction is owning which planets...)
- Warning if a player wants to destroy their last spaceport/warehouse on a planet
- Warning if a player tries to colonize a planet without iron, coal and clay as their first planet
- Improvements to the gamma slider ingame (lower is currently brighter, higher is darker)
- World seed is annoying to type in
- Building a mine directly on a resource deposit from the little menu that pops open when selecting a resource
- Improvements to the trade route menu
- Added the tile type a building needs to be placed on (Ground/Beach/Ocean..) in the building menu tooltip
- Upgrade hotkey for upgrading a building
- ....
If you think we missed a big QoL change you were looking for or if you have any more suggestions, please let us know in the discussion below this thread or in the discord.
Bugs:
There are still a couple of bugs on our TODO list that will get fixed in one of the next updates:
- There is a potential desync in multiplayer when building or upgrading residences (Very difficult to reproduce on our machines thats why its taking a little longer to fix but we are working on it)
- There is a potential desync when adding spaceships to a trade route too quickly
- Sounds sometimes overlap very akwardly
Localization:
We added two additional languages to the game in the last couple of weeks: Dutch and Italian. Some people have already requested additional languages. Our current system is limited to ASCII-256 characters so most eastern languages are currently not possible but we have plans to move to a bigger supported charset in the future and we will let you know when that happens. There are also a couple of languages that we could support right now but dont have anyone that could do the translation. Spanish, Portuguese and French are languages that we could support with our current charset.
Feature requests:
We have also collected a lot of feature requests that were submitted by all of you and we wont talk about all of them here because then the post would become way too long but here are some of the most highly requested ones with our option and plan for them:
- Statistics for goods and production ratios: This is definitley planned and we actually had plans for that for one of the last updates before leaving early access but we decided to pull this feature in and we hope to have a detailed statistics menu around the time we release the Diplomacy update. It will include production and consumption rates of goods for each building, planet and the entire faction and will give you a good overview of your economy
- Terraforming: Many of you have requested some form of terraforming. We actually didnt have any plans for that but we are now considering that. We currently dont have a fixed plan for it but it could be something like a building you have to research that will allow you to remove mountains from a tile or remove beaches or ocean and so on
- Combat and trading between players: Both are planned and already part of the roadmap (Diplomacy update and Military update)
Giving an overview:
We worked out a content roadmap, to give you a more graphical overview about what is coming next:
What we are currently working on:
Besides the bugs and some of the QoL features we are currently mostly working on the big Research update. Its progressing very well and we are currently finishing up the research system. After that we will gradually add in all the remaining new buildings, do balancing and testing and then prepare for release. So the update is still very likely to be ready in August and we will talk more about it as we approach its release.
And last but not least here is a little teaser of some of the stuff that will await you in the coming month:
We hope this gives you a better look behind the scenes and on our perspective of the current state of the game and we hope you are as excited as we are about whats still to come.
TeamJA