NOTE: Dev Update incoming with full breakdown of this update (21st July).
This major patch implemented the Galactic Council, overhauled the Sociology and diplomacy technologies, laid the ground work for Spying, and made improvements to Trade Routes and Commanders. It also completely overhauls the 3D ship designer's mechanics and user interface based on recent feedback. We would greatly appreciate feedback on the revamped 3D ship designer before we complete implementation of the remaining races' ship designs.
Galactic Council:
Before the original Revenant war, the races of the galaxy regularly met to discuss and vote on matters of galactic importance as the Galactic Council. The first race to research the Galactic Council technology will recreate the council and become its leader, after which any race can choose to join. Council Members can propose a variety of resolutions, and a council meeting is scheduled for 10 turns later to vote on the issue. Each council member gets 1 council point per turn and each resolution costs a certain number of council points to propose, and only one proposal can be pending a vote at a time. The council leader gets +1 point/turn.
Implemented the galactic council's core voting gameplay
Implemented new diplomacy screen visuals and UI for voting on council resolutions.
Changed the "intelligence" tab in the Diplomacy drop down menu to "Galactic Council"
Implemented the UI for the Galactic Council dropdown menu. This panel displays all council members, council points, council tax, current council bank total, the current pending vote, and a list of resolutions to vote on.
Implemented Weapon Ban resolutions (Genesis Device, Bio-Toxin Bomb, Stellar Converter) **Still some bugs to fix with this resolution**
Implemented Building / Infrastruture ban resolutions (Nuclear Power Plant, Fossil Fuel Power Plant)
Implemented Open Civilian Trade resolution (reduces cost of all trade routes by 1BC/turn)
Implemented Vote New Leader resolution (vote your race to become council leader)
Implemented Security resolutions (Share Intelligence, Intelligence Updates, Intelligence Network)
Implemented Health resolution (Share Medicine, Medical Conference, Universal Healthcare)
Implemented Combat Rating resolution (Share Weapons, Weapons Trade Fair, Joint Training Exercises)
Implemented Shipyard Capacity resolution (Share Schematics, Astro-Engineering Conference, Joint Engineering Projects)
Implemented Morale resolution (Share Culture, Entertainment Expo, Cultural Exchange)
Implemented Metal Production resolution (Share Metallurgy, Geology Conference, Industrial Exchange)
Implemented Food production resolution (Share Food, Agricultural Conference, Seed Bank Initiative)
Implemented Research resolution (Share Knowledge, Scientific Conference, Science Collaboration)
Implemented Financial Aid resolution (Request Financial Aid (10%), Request Financial Aid (25%), Request Financial Aid (50%))
Implemented Request Economic Stimulus resolution (all races get even share of council bank)
Implemented Limit Military resolution (-5 command points to all races)
Implemented Share Strategic Resources resolution (all strategic resources are shared with all council members)
Implemented Share Sensor Data resolution (all council members are treated as having Sensor treaties with each other)
The AI now makes a decision on whether to join the council each turn once it's founded.
The AI will not place any banned infrastructure. Diplomatic Victory:
Once the Revenant planet reveals itself, the Ignore Revenant Planet resolution appears for voting in the Galactic Council.
If Ignore Revenant Planet resolution is passed, the AI will not colonise the Revenant planet. (Still to be tested)
If the Ignore Revenant Planet resolution is passed and you colonise the Revenant planet, you are immediately ejected from the council and banned from re-joining. Diplomatic victory is then impossible for you, and you could lose if another council member gets diplomatic victory.
Once the Ignore Revenant Planet resolution is passed, the Galactic Peace Treaty resolution is available for voting.
If the Galactic Peace Treaty resolution is passed, all current wars immediately end and the Declare War option will no longer be available in diplomacy with other council members.
If the Galactic Peace Treaty resolution is passed, the AI will not declare war or engage in combat with other council members. (War AI not yet implemented, so this has not been tested)
If the Galactic Peace Treaty resolution is passed and any council race attacks another, the attacker is immediately ejected from the council and banned from re-joining. (Still to be tested)
Once the Galactic Peace Treaty resolution is passed, the Universal Alliance resolution becomes available for voting.
When the Universal Alliance resolution is passed, the Diplomatic Victory Condition is triggered.
If the Revenant planet is colonised before the Ignore Revenant Planet resolution is passed, the resolution is removed from voting and selection, and this victory path is no longer possible until the Revenants are unleashed.
Once the Revenant force is released from the planet and begins attacking the galaxy, the Revenant Priority Act appears for voting. This functions the same as the Galactic Peace Treaty.
Once the Revenant Priority Act is passed, the Revenant Defense Initiative becomes available for voting.
If the Revenant Defense Initiative resolution is passed, all council races take half damage from Revenant weapons. This will help them fight back the periodic fleets from the Revenant planet, and makes the Destroy Revenants victory condition considerably easier.
Once the Revenant Defense Initiative resolution is passed, the Universal Alliance resolution appears in the voting list. As above, this triggers the Diplomatic Victory Condition.Complete overhaul of the 3D Ship Designer
Recently we brought Predestination to the annual Q-Con gaming event in Belfast and ran a 3D ship designer competition to collect feedback and see how people use the designer. We have now completed a full overhaul of the ship designer's construction mechanics based on that feedback, including a complete revamp of the toolbox and the addition of more advanced CAD-like design tools. The addition of CAD-like advanced tools was one of our stretch goals on Kickstarter that we promised, so we're very happy that we've now got that implemented.
Ship parts can no longer be picked up by clicking and dragging. This eliminates the problem where people would accidentally click and drag a part when attempting to rotate the camera
Move Tool: A new intuitive CAD-style movement tool has been added to the toolbox. When toggled on, three arrows appear around the selected ship part that allow you to drag it in three directions. The Move tool correctly aligns itself based on the ship part's rotation.
Scale Tool: A new intuitive CAD-style scale tool replaces the scale slider bar in the toolbox. When toggled on, three arrows appear around the selected ship part that allow you to stretch the part in one of three directions. This is an improvement over the existing system as it allows you to scale the model on the X, Y, and Z axes separately to produce more varied shapes. A checkbox in the toolbox allows you to toggle on the option to rescale all three directions at once if you want to make an entire item bigger or smaller but keep its current proportions the same.
Rotation Tool: A new intuitive CAD-style rotation tool replaces the X, Y, and Z rotation dials in the toolbox. When toggled on, three rotation arrows will appear around the selected ship part that allow the player to rotate the part on three axes. This tool correctly aligns itself based on the ship part's current rotation. When rotating a ship part, a visual rotation disc will appear in 3D to indicate the plane around which you can rotate.
New Design Window: When creating a new design, the player is now initially presented with the "New Design" window. Buttons along the top allow you to select the hull size you want. A list of pre-made ship designs available for the selected hull type is shown, and clicking on one will give you a copy of that design to start working with. A second list of Base Hulls allows players to create a blank design starting with one Crew Quarter mirrored. Players who aren't interested in designing their own ships cosmetically but are more interested in function can simply select a pre-made design and then throw the modules and weapons they prefer on them. Those who like designing ships from scratch can use the base hull options, or even start with a blank slate.
Advanced Undo feature: The previous "undo" feature was full of bugs and only stored the rotation and scale of one part at a time. We've now replaced this with a much better universal undo feature that saves the entire ship's state using a deep clone procedure every time a change is made, saving up to the last 50 changes (changing part scale, rotation, moving a part, adding a new part, deleting a part, resetting a part, or mirroring a part). It can be triggered by clicking a new Undo button at the bottom of the screen or pressing Ctrl-Z.
Other Toolbox Improvements: Made prominent buttons for the "Copy Group", "Delete Group", "Mirror Part" (formerly "Mirror X), and "Reset Part" options.
Removed the Mirror Y and Mirror Z options from the toolbox as they were confusing to some people and in reality only Mirror X was ever used.
Removed the Flip X, Flip Y, and Flip Z options from the toolbox as they were confusing and not actually very useful.
Added a toggle switch to snap rotation angles to the nearest 15 degrees. This should make lining up angles a lot easier.
Ship part extra rotation is now stored as a Quaternion so that it can be rotated on arbitrary axes without running into problems. Previously rotation was stored as three Euler angles representing yaw, pitch and roll, and then converted into a Quaternion/Matrix on demand. This caused issues depending on the multiplication order used for the yaw, pitch, and roll, so we replaced it with a Quaternion and used swing twist decomposition to perform rotations around arbitrary axes in the ship designer.
Implemented backward compatibility mode for old ship designs. When a design is loaded, the old Euler angle rotations and single float part scales are converted into the new Quaternion rotation and Vector3 part scale regime. All ship designs are now saved using the updated schema.
All races now have separate sets of default ship designs that are loaded from file. This is required for the implementation of some backer rewards.
Added an exception triggered when you try to add more than 255 parts to a ship. Don't do this :p
The perpendicular base hull plane cross has been replaced with a single vertical plane to work better with the new base hull paradigm. You can see this if you create a new design using a Base Hull and then select and delete the base hull. Sociology Technology Overhaul:
All diplomatic treaties are now available without researching them via the Sociology tree.
Implemented the Improved Trade Pact and Improved Research Treaty technologies, which double the bonus of the corresponding treaty.
The Diplomatic Computer technology is now a robotic version of the Diplomatic Advisors technology
Moved the Ambasssador Module earlier in the First contact era so that it is still useful in small maps.
The Galactic Council is now at the end of the First Contact tech era.
Buffed the Xeno Psychology technology to +25% to all diplomatic offers and moved it to the end of the First Contact era. It is now an alternative to selecting the Galactic Council, so if the Galactic Council is already founded then you'll have something else to pick.
Implemented spying technology placeholders in the First Contact era of the Sociology tech tree.
Added Spy Pod to the Troop Pod technology to create the "Spy & Troop Pods" technology. The spy portion is not yet implemented, but acts as a placeholder for when spying is implemented.
Added the Self-Destruct Device technology, which gives a 50% chance when a ship is taken over that it will self-destruct.
Restructured the right hand side of the First Contact tech era so that we have three alternate paths: Spying techs, Ship Defense against boarding, and boarding techs.
Implemented Exo-Systems Analysis technology. When you capture enemy ships or planets, you have a 50% chance of discovering the technology behind each unknown weapon, module, building or infrastructure.
Implemented Subvertive Psychology technology, which increases the effectiveness of threats and coercions in diplomacy by 50%. Threats and Coercions have not yet been implemented, so this acts as a placeholder for now. This is another alternative technology to the Galactic Council so that you can pick it if the council has already been formed.
Implemented the Council Influence technology in the Galactic Domination tech era of the Sociology tree, which gives you +1 council point per turn.
Implemented the Financial/Scientific/Industrial/Open Border Resolutions technologies in the Galactic Domination tech era of the Sociology tree, each of which unlocks another set of resolutions.Misc Gameplay Changes:
Trade Routes are now limited to 50ly range, so to set up longer trade routes you'll need to send it via an intermediary star system.
The Open Trade Routes technology now increases trade route range to 100ly
When setting up a trade route, the game now displays the range of your route and all stars in range.
Trade routes now cost a flat 1BC/turn for Food and Metal or 2BC/turn for Energy/Population. Previously they cost BC per 50ly.
Trade routes can now correctly go through wormholes. If a star is within range and has a wormhole then you can also set up trade routes with the star on the other side of the wormhole
Commanders now start showing up periodically once you break the warp barrier rather than waiting for you to research the Homing Beacon initiative.
The Homing Beacon Initiative now increases the frequency with which commanders offer their services to your empire by 50% (from about once every 150 turns to once in 100 turns).Bugs and Crashes:
Fixed a spritefont crash caused by certain characters not being available in certain languages
Fixed a bug causing the last ship captain and planet leader in the list not to load
Fixed a crash with the planet scout icons
Fixed a bug with certain mouse clicks going through the tutorial window and allowing you to break the tutorial
Fixed a bug with the keyboard input on text boxes that was making the shift key not press correctly in some circumstances and preventing keys like the @ key from being pressed.
Fixed a thread crash caused by generating the graphics for temporal rifts
The Farm and Ore bonus from race bonuses etc is now applied correctly. Previously it was being divided by 100.
The player should no longer get messages about planet surveys being blocked that were actually meant for other races.
Fixed a bug with text on the title of tooltips extending out of the tooltip box if it was too long. This can now take up to 2 lines.
Racial bonuses to diplomacy were not being added to diplomatic proposals. This has now been fixed.
Fixed various bugs with placement of ship parts in several existing ship designs after conversion to the new system.
Fixed z-fighting on ship parts that are mirrored or placed exactly on the same plane.Cheers,
-- Brendan, Lead Developer